


Sketching a Myth

by Beshter



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, One Shot, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2020-05-19 10:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 109,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19354894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beshter/pseuds/Beshter
Summary: Singular stories studying the character of one Peggy Carter.





	1. A Sea of Flame

**Author's Note:**

> These little sketches are born out of me working out Peggy in my head. Some can fit in canon nicely. Others don't. Some are for story ideas I had that will go nowhere (particularly a family for Michael that I've since changed up). Others are for ideas I will flesh out in other stories I am piddling on. These are more to share for fun and have utterly no connection to any other Marvel projects I may be working on other than helping me get into the head of Peggy Carter.

Perhaps Peggy could have tolerated the cold and wet more if it weren’t for the fact that their leader trudged through the muck and mire of October in eastern France as if they were in a fine, spring rain. He wandered along while behind him most of his unit trailed, shivering, exhausted, and grumpy, and every one eyed his dark blue helmet as if they wanted to take a shot at it with the nearest rock they could find.

“I know Cap’s got the serum, but I think he forgets the rest of us need warmth and sleep.” Morita beside her was looking decidedly murderous as off to his left, Jones nodded, dark head hanging low between his shoulders. Only Barnes managed to keep up with their erstwhile captain and Peggy wondered if that was more out of a lifetime of habit than anything else.

“I’ll see if I can say something.” She gave the flagging soldier’s arm an encouraging squeeze as she pushed ahead, trying to catch up to Steve’s now impossibly long strides, heartily wishing for half a moment that he was still shorter than she was and struggling to catch up.

“Captain!” Her clipped tone rang in the trees, causing both Steve and Bucky to turn around as she clambered up on the top of the ridge they had just scaled like gazelles.

“Agent Carter,” he greeted without even a hint of breathlessness, something she found somewhat annoying as she gasped her way to him.

“Not to seem like a weak and frail woman, but I think the men under your command could use with a bit of a rest. They’ve been marching since before light and it’s nearly sundown.”

“She’s right, Steve, you’ve been pushing hard. That new body of yours forgets the other mortals who are struggling to keep up with you.” Barnes eyed the men at the bottom of the ridge, all fatigued as they bent over, leaning on their knees or against trees, ready to drop where they stood. “How about we bunk down around here for the night?”

For his part, Steve looked somewhat sheepish as he nodded at his best friend, watching as the other man went back down the hill to see to the commandos. He remained, scanning the land around them from their vantage point. “It’s sure pretty around here.”

Peggy glanced around the tree tops, the leaves all having changed with the colder temperatures. “I suppose I haven’t given it much thought.”

“You probably have forests like this all over England.”

“Not as much anymore, but yes, we do have some.” She shoved her freezing hands further into her jacket pocket, scanning the horizon with the eyes of Steve Rogers. “I don’t suppose they have this in Brooklyn?”

“Maybe once, but nah, not when I was growing up. You’d be lucky if you got a tree in a yard, and that’s if you had one of those. All you got was a sea of brick buildings and wooden tenements. Camp Lehigh was the first time I even saw a real forest that wasn’t Central Park.”

Peggy smiled at the memory of who he had been, the scrawny, sensitive man who seemed all but forgotten now, but still lay there just beneath the surface. Certainly, she saw it come out in his art, in the scribbles and doodles he made in the notebook he faithfully carried, the visual memory of their many missions. She wondered, briefly, what that artist’s eye saw from the top of the ridge, in the swaying tops of browned trees, damp and bedraggled, just as she was.

As if fate was having a go at her, the clouds above, which had been dark gray and oppressive all afternoon, parted suddenly, as a shaft of golden sunlight filtered through across the valley, over the treetops, setting the forest below afire. It shimmered as a gust of wind stirred the branches, shaking off raindrops like spangles, stirring the entire woods like a living thing, an ocean of orange and red, rustling like waves on a shore. For a moment, just a moment, it was achingly beautiful, a fairy story come to life. Peggy held her breath and watched as the clouds passed by. By the next moment, the sun was obscured again, and the sea of flame had disappeared, replaced by the drab banality of the forest. She had to wonder what a boy from Brooklyn who had only ever seen dingy red brick and gray clapboard towering overhead all of his life had to say about a sight like that.

“You can’t say you see that every day.” Steve beside her sounded awed, his voice a low, reverential rumble.

“No, you can’t.” Peggy smiled up at him, realizing that even she couldn’t say that. “Maybe, years from now, when we look back at all this horror and mess, this can be something we can point to and say ‘That was truly beautiful.'”

A soft smile flickered over Steve’s face. “Yeah...one of the things at least.”

Peggy liked to pretend she didn’t see the pointed expression in his blue eyes, but that didn’t stop the blush that rose to color her cheeks.

Later that evening, the men settled, huddled in tiny tents and sleeping bags against the cold, she observed Steve on first watch, sitting in the glow of firelight, frantically sketching in his notebook, as if he were trying to imprint it with the memory of that day. Peggy smiled to herself as she crawled into her own sleeping bag, drifting off, watching the gleam of firelight and dreaming of a sea of living flame, red leaves dancing in golden sunlight, and Steve’s expression of abject awe.


	2. A Young Atlas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy Carter meets an obstinate new recruit.

Peggy was reviewing Dr. Erskine’s notes on what to look for in potential recruits when the new batch came trooping in, a jumble of voices laughing and murmuring. She barely paid any heed. At this point she was so used to soldiers and their dubiousness reaction to her she tended to ignore the worst of it, determined not to give them the satisfaction. She’d get to know them all well enough in a minute, all their statistics and measurements as they smirked, sucking in guts and tightening muscles, hoping to impress her enough to give them a shot. Whether it was at Erskine’s formula or a date was a bit uncertain.

“Would you look at that!” Howard Stark beside her whistled low as Peggy cut eyes over at him. He was looking into the crowd, though, and nodded to the far side. “Check out the Charles Atlas over there. Where do you think Erskine dug him up?”

Peggy looked up, eyes sweeping over the sea of tall, cornfed samples the US Army had sent over to the one lone stand out in the group. He wandered near the front of the cluster of them, just on the edge, as if determined to be seen despite being at least a head shorter than nearly everyone there.

“Not the usual fair, no, not from Phillips at least." she murmured, returning to her notes.

“Nah, Doc said he found this one at a recruitment station or something. Why he took him, who knows. Looks as if a stiff wind would blow him away, let alone a bullet in a rifle.”

“I’m sure Dr. Erskine has his reasons.” What they were, Peggy couldn’t possibly know. Stark was right, he looks so fragile she worried he’d not survive the physical. Still, she caught the stubborn pride in his stoic face, the uptilted chin, the determined demeanor and wondered if he might not surprise her after all.

“All right, you lot.” She called attention from the men towards her as more than one appreciative gaze flickered her way.

“You’ve all been assigned here by the US Army. You’ll enter into one of these rooms.” She waved towards the curtained off areas to the right and left of her. “There you’ll all be given a general examination. Afterwards, you’ll be assigned to general quarters. I expect to see you in uniform and on the parade grounds at 1400 hours, if you know what is good for you.”

There was a general murmur of assent, one that earned Peggy’s displeasure. 

“Is that how the Army teaches respect these days?” Her voice whipped through the room, cracking their full attention.

Almost in unison they responded. “No, ma’am.”

“Good!” She glared at them all as they all suddenly became much more respectful. “Dismissed.”

There was a general scramble as men wandered into rooms, some rushing into the first and closest, others peeking in each first, she guessed to either see what the wait was like or how pretty the nurse on the other side was. The one soldier she did note was the scrawny one, shuffling, uncertain, to the one room no one else seemed to want. Perhaps he chose it because of the solitude, no one to eye him up and down and laugh.

“I’ll go check on the rooms, make sure the troops do as they are told.” She shared a long-suffering look with Howard, who only grinned.

“Crack the whip, Peg. I’m sure some of them like it.” He ignored her eye-roll at his predictably rude remark and wandered over to the quiet room first, just to get a sense of that man first. She tapped, lightly, on the metal frame before opening the curtain, at least to give some warning to the occupant within.

He was down to just his underwear and was painfully self-conscious as she wandered in, judging by the way he hunched in on himself. If he looked frail fully clothed, that was nothing compared to how he appeared sans fabric to shield him. He was all long limbs and awkward angles, at odds with his shorter stature. His painfully thin shoulders were still broad for his build, but they barely held up a chest that was weak and scrawny, ribs and shoulder blades visible beneath pale skin. He nodded briefly by way of respect as the pretty, efficient nurse took his blood pressure, which even Peggy could see was running high for a man so slight.

“What’s your name, soldier?” She smiled in the practiced, professional way she had mastered around the young men she saw coming through everyday.

“Rogers, ma’am, Steven.” He finally looked up, nodding politely. His voice surprised her, a baritone rumble rather than something high and squeaky. She wasn’t sure why she expected that.

“And you enlisted for the Army?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Something defiant flickered across his thin face, and his eyes, as blue as the summer sky, lit up in equal parts challenge and exasperation. “Everyone else is doing it. Why should I be any less?”

Ahhh, well, there was the rub. “You think you would be less if you didn’t go to war?”

The bright flush that crept across his high, hollow cheeks told her the truth, even if he turned his expression carefully neutral. “I just know I could be doing more, that’s all.”

Peggy glanced at the chart the nurse was filling out. She noted his date of birth, 1918, three years older than herself. He hardly looked a day over sixteen and he was a grown man of twenty-five. Honestly, his vital statistics were enough to make her cut him on the spot and send him home. “How did you get roped in by Dr. Erskine?”

Here he squirmed and she didn’t think it had to do with the cold steel of the nurse’s stethoscope against his wheezing lungs. “He ran into me at a recruitment station in Queens.”

“Queens? It says here you are from Brooklyn.”

He shrugged. “I was at the Stark Expo and happened to wander in.”

“Wandered into quite a few, I see.” She eyed the rest of his file and the numerous notes and rejections he’d received. “An asthmatic who suffered from rheumatic fever once. That alone should have killed you and that’s only two of the items on here.”

“Guess I’m kinda hard to kill.” His half smile didn’t quite reach the blue of his eyes. Clearly, he was used to being limited by his physical ailments. Peggy could guess as a child he probably didn’t get to enjoy the same sort of rough-and-tumble experience the others did for fear he would get injured. That would go a long way to explaining why he was sitting there, jaw jutted in stubborn pride, as if daring her to look at his medical history and cut him on the spot.

“Let’s hope that proves to be true, Private, else you’ll be sent home sooner than you thought and we’ll all end up with egg on our face.” She snapped the file closed and passed it back to the nurse, who began writing her notes into the charts inside. “For your sake, I hope you don’t get cut.”

She turned on her heel, prepared to make a brisk exit into the next exam room when his voice caught her at the curtain. “You don’t think I can do it, do you?”

She turned. He glared at her, challenge in his expression, trying to look polite but clearly incensed. She bit back the grin that wanted to rise to the surface, instead raising her shoulders diffidently.

“I don’t know, Private Rogers, we shall see how it all shakes out.” She turned heel on him once more to the next room filled with the predictable lot of soldiers, trying to look impressive. Still, as she moved through the group, she couldn’t help but think of the defiance in Roger’s bright blue eyes and the rather large chip on his very frail shoulders and privately wondered to herself if maybe, just maybe, this stubborn little man from Brooklyn might not just make it after all.


	3. Crawling On His Belly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy gives Jack Thompson hell.

The case had been sewn up tight till Thompson fumbled it all down himself like a spilled sandwich. Peggy watched their lead - _her_ lead - walk out of the office in a high dungeon as Thompson obsequiously followed. One phone call behind locked doors and a month’s worth of investigation was down the tubes. She could have screamed in rage, but instead settled for slamming her desk drawer soundly, rattling all the contents and causing Sousa in front of her to jump, swivelling to arch a chagrined eyebrow at her antics. She merely glared back at him, daring him to challenge her, and he wisely decided to turn around. When Thompson slithered back in, he took one look at Peggy, beckoning her in with two fingers into the office he’d claimed after being named chief. Peggy had no love for Dooley before him, but at least he was honest, unlike Thompson, who threw himself into his desk chair to glare up at her insolently, a lock of greased blonde hair falling into his eyes.

“You kicked a hornets' nest, Marge, and now I have to clean up your mess.”

“And what mess is that?” She crossed her arms, glaring down at him. “McCabe is our man, you know it and I know it, and just because he’s golfing buddies with some friend of your father doesn’t make it any less the truth.”

“You can’t just go accusing men without evidence,” Thompson responded hotly, but with little power behind it. No evidence? She’d had it piled up, meticulous and tied with a giant bow that even his idiot brain couldn’t miss.

“What do you mean ‘no evidence’? It was there on your desk.” She had seen it just that morning sitting there on the corner. Now, conveniently, it was gone. 

Thompson’s eyes flickered to where it had been, but only replied. “There have been some new things that have come to light.”

“Oh, like what?” Fury rose in her, hot and righteous, but she kept her face icy cold as she pinned him to his leather chair. “Perhaps his golf score? Maybe it is some debt he owes someone? Lost at cards has he or has he promised to pour money into someone’s pet project or political campaign?”

“You’re imagining things, Carter.”

“Am I?” She moved to his desk, leaning over it, her palms digging into the edge of the cheap pine as she hovered. “Horace McCabe has known political connections to your father. So did Milton Waters when I spoke to him. Suddenly, whatever case that was being built disappeared into the ether when you locked a door and put in a phone call. Now, you may think that I can’t prove it, but I know for a fact your father would be a long distance number away. Rose is the one who handles the calls out of this office and has no problem telling me who it was you called if you’ve been making specific phone calls after arrests of prominent friends of your family. Now, tell me I’m wrong on that.”

His ferret-like face had turned beat red in anger. “A lot of accusation you are throwing around there, Marge. You think you can cross a commanding officer like that?”

“Wouldn’t be the first. Have a chat with Colonel Philips sometime.” She remained unfazed. “What does McCabe have on you and why is he walking out the door?”

“You can’t admit you screwed this up!”

“And you can’t admit that your a snake in the grass without legs enough to stand as a man.”

For half a moment she thought he was honestly going to punch her. A small part of her hoped he would, if nothing else to get a chance to get some of her own back, but the grown up, reasonable part of her knew it would do nothing other than perhaps sack Thompson and put some other blowhard in his place. She decided to back off out of the line of fire for the moment.

“Either explain to me why he walked or suddenly there will be a whole lot of speculation around this office about you and your leadership that you aren’t going to like.”

In the moment, he reminded her strongly of a toddler, stubborn and mutinous in his determination not to respond, as if somehow he could just wish this and her away. But it didn’t work like that and Peggy only rolled her eyes, turning on her heels to the door. Her hand had barely wrapped around the knob when he called out.

“My father is in debt to McCabe.” His words choked and strangled him, tripping over themselves in the space between them. She turned to glance at him, his defiance now turned slack. “McCabe threatened to call in the debt if I didn’t work to clean this up.”

She sighed, turning back fully, back against the door. “So you let him have that sort of power over you because your father made bad decisions all on his own. You’d risk your reputation and position in the SSR over your father’s poor finances?”

“What and let someone like that ruin my family over it? This could cripple my father, ruin him, not just financially, but socially. It may all be well and good for you, Carter, without a family, but I still have to think about a mother who doesn’t know better and a sister whose wedding will be the social event of the season.”

His words stung, no less for him assuming she had no family, but also because as much as she hated to admit it, he wasn’t completely amoral, just mostly so. He was trying to look out for someone other than his scoundrel of a father, and she doubted his mother and sister deserved to be painted with his particular tarbrush.

“I do have a family, Thompson.” Her tone was somewhat softer, but only somewhat. “I have parents in England. My father sits the bench, as a matter of fact, and is well respected in the law courts.”

Clearly, that struck Thompson as amusing. “Explains why you are such a stickler for the rules except when it comes to you.”

She wasn’t going to take his bait. “I get what it means to have family and expectations put on you. I also understand how much it costs to stand against those expectations to do what is right. You let McCabe walk and you know he’s selling plans outside of the US to the highest bidder and isn’t caring who gets them as long as he gets his payment. Today, you may be saving your family’s face, but what about tomorrow or a year from now? What if we aren’t the ones to finally bring McCabe down, but the FBI is and they start asking questions of the SSR about why we allowed a man guilty as sin to walk. They will have no reason to protect him and all the reason to begin asking about the investigation and why he was let go. How much will your family’s reputation be saved when your face is on the front page of the paper during your treason trial?”

He squirmed. Peggy knew he had thought about it, but it was clear that whatever hold his father had on him was heavier than whatever potential existential threat may lie in the distance. “We all got to make our choices, Carter.”

“Yes, we do.” She shook her head grimly. “I would just hope that one day you realize you don’t have to crawl on your belly to those who hold power over you to survive in this world.”

With that, she opened his door, rattling the glass in its frame, as she threw herself back out and to her desk, ignoring Sousa’s speculative and worried eye.


	4. Fish Gotta Swim and Birds Gotta Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy learns a bit more about Howard.

In truth, Peggy didn’t think that Howard Stark would ever cease to amaze her.

“I didn’t know you knew how to fish.” She wandered across the rough-hewn and salt sprayed boards that stuck out into Santa Monica Bay from the Malibu coast. Howard had eschewed his normally dapper clothes in favor of a grungy and oil-stained pair of chinos, an equally grimy undershirt, and a plaid linen shirt over top, open and lazy, much as he looked.

“I’m full of surprises, Peg, as you well know.” He patted the rough, graying board next to him as he moved over his basket of fishing toggles and what-not to make room for her. Peggy settled with as much grace as she could muster, sinking down beside him, hanging her denim clad legs over the side.

“Is this a skill you learned from your disreputable friends on the Lower East Side?”

“Nah, learned this from my grandpa.” Stark spun the reel as he pulled the line from the murky gray-green waters below. “I only met him twice. Parents had scraped enough money to send me upstate to where Pop’s parents lived for a summer, probably just to get me out of the hellhole we lived in. He was the one who gave me my first tool set all my own and he also taught me to fish. Told me with those two skills alone, I’d never have to scrape by for a thing in my life.”

“Also helped you were a genius.” She grinned at him as he shrugged and nodded by way of response. “He sounds like he was a good grandfather.”

“That he was. He was the one who fronted the money for my education, till I outstripped it and got a scholarship to college.” Howard had famously gotten into MIT at sixteen only to quit after one year to form his own company, one that he’d made a mint on as the United States marched into war. “He was one of a long line of Starks who liked to tinker with machines and make things out of scrap metal and chewing gum. Worked on farm machinery, mostly, his and everyone else's, but didn't have ambition to do anything other than work the land and raise a family. Never made much more than he could use to support everyone. Hell, he paid for my school by selling some of his own land, stuff that had been in the family since one of them decided that going up the Hudson and squatting on a plot of land was a good idea.”

“So how did your father end up selling fruit at street corners, then?” She’d always been curious. Stark was famously closed mouth on his origins, preferring the sanitized public version of his history to the drabbles of truth she picked up in their years of acquaintance with each other.

“Because he was a romantic.” Stark tugged the line out of the water, frowning at the long strand of seaweed that clung to the hook, nary a worm or a fish in sight.

“I’ve known many a romantic who didn’t end up scraping by just to survive.”

“You’ve never really known romantics.” He reached behind him for his tackle bag, pulling out a container of bait and shaking it at her for emphasis. “Pop was a capital 'R' romantic. Grew up in this small town upstate, had big dreams to be someone and a head full of gadgets and gizmos he could make to get rich quick. Married his high school sweetheart the day after they graduated and ran off to New York City, told his father he could keep his boring old farm and his boring old life, he was going to make it rich. Ten years later he was flat broke and couldn’t get hired to clean shit out of the sewers. What he did make, he usually drank away anyway.”

He uttered this so dispassionately, as if it had happened to someone else, not the great and powerful Howard Stark. Here he sat, in the sun of Southern California, as if he were telling her about the great exploits of his illustrious ancestors of old, not of the dissipation of his father. She wondered just how much that old sting rankled in him, the embarrassment of his father’s wasted potential and the poverty he grew up in. Surely, that figured in his love of flagrantly showing off both his genius and his wealth to nearly everyone who would pay attention for half a moment.

“Anyway, that’s all in the past. He died right before the war. The DTs finally got him.”

His cool indifference to it all left Peggy feeling somewhat sad, sensing the hidden hurt under the surface of Stark’s collected exterior. “How about your mother?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Lives in a nice place back upstate, an old farmhouse I had fixed up for her. She gardens and the only sewing she does is for the Ladies Auxiliary in town. Promised her she’d never had to pick up a needle again in her life, but I think she likes creating things.”

“A habit I see you developed. “ Peggy couldn’t help but get something of a small dig in there, teasing.

“Got to keep this brain busy, Peg, or I start doing horribly rash things, like considering marrying Ava Gardner.”

“Oh, heaven forbid!” She smirked as he cast his line into the water again, casually, in a long, easy arc. “I'm shocked you haven’t invented a fishing machine, yet.’

“That takes away from the whole point of the practice, Carter! It’s all about the rituals and routines, the sacred liturgy of a deeply personal and spiritual act.”

“Fishing and baseball, then?”

“Don’t disparage either, if you know what’s good for you.”

There was no real heat in Stark’s threat and she merely laughed at him. They sat in companionable silence, the pair of them, looking out onto the glittering waters. In the distance, Peggy could spy the dark hump of Catalina Island peeking through the offshore mists that clung, even this close to mid-morning. Stark wasn’t one who liked his silences for long, however, and the incessant need for noise and something to occupy his whirling brain had him speaking before long.

“So, I’m taking it that it was unladylike in England to take up fishing as a sport?”

“Heavens, no, my mother would have fainted. Didn’t mean I didn’t go a time or two with my father. I was good for digging up the worms.”

“I could see that in you, honestly.”

“My mother was always against anything that wasn’t neat and proper. She disapproved of father taking me off with him and Michael on his hunting trips to shoot things or on his fishing trips, even if I had a grand time with them.”

“A prodigy with a gun even as a tyke. What was your first kill?”

“A quail, I believe.” She could remember how sad she’d been, seeing the bird lying broken on the ground. “I was only nine, I think. I was so proud I even hit it, but when it came down to it, I cried when I saw the poor bird, all bloody. Taught me an important lesson, though, about the nature of life and death and the responsibility one has towards it, knowing you can snuff it out in just a second. You learn to respect your weapon, and your food, a lot more when you know you are the one doing the killing.”

“Gees, way to bring a lovely spring morning down.” Stark glowered at her over the tops of his mirrored aviator glasses, but she ignored him.

“Anyway, Mother never approved of it, which is hardly surprising, and after I went off to school I didn’t go on as many trips with Father.”

“Do I sense a hint of disgruntlement, Agent Carter, with your mother, a certain frustration at the limited notion of gender and capability that she had that differed from yours?”

“You sense nothing as you know, you great prat.” She shoved him gently with his shoulder. “But, yes. Mother and I never saw eye-to-eye on ambition and a woman’s role in the world. If she’d had her way I’d have been married to sad, boring Fred Wells and tied to my home and hearth with a string of babies by now. Instead, I’m a spinster running wild in America, getting shot at and hanging with the likes of that scandalous millionaire, Howard Stark.”

“I resemble that remark,” he protested, a hint of the devil in the pleased grin that slowly spread on his face. “Is she really scandalized?”

“She’s already lectured me twice on the type of women she’s seen on your arm and if I want to be associated with someone like that.”

“Your mother does not give enough credit to your sense of taste and general overall class.”

“There are many things my mother doesn’t give me credit for, least of all, that.” How did they get on so depressing of a topic, she wondered sourily. She’d been enjoying just a pleasant talk on the beach, and now they both were delving into their unhappy relationships with their parents.

Stark hummed beside her, for once quietly thoughtful as he slowly reeled his thin filament of line back towards him through the water. “It’s like that song, you know. “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.' You got to be who you are. I have a brain that can’t stop and wasn’t about to be limited by my father’s failure. You had a need to be something more than a pretty face in a drawing room and flouted convention and expectation. We got to be who we are meant to be, Peg, plain and simple.”

That was surprisingly thoughtful for one Howard Stark.

“You do realize those lyrics are about a love song, right?” She wanted to clarify he really did know from whence he was speaking.

“Shhh, you only get moments of profundity from me every so often. Just go with it.”

She granted him that, getting Stark to be serious about anything for more than a moment was rare indeed. She chose instead to glance at the spot they were at, this deserted bit of coastline in what had once been ranch land with the ominous sounding name of “Point Dume”. Peggy didn’t know much about Malibu outside of the fact it was mostly undeveloped. She glanced around the scrubby, coastal brush and the rolling hills that swept up from the golden sands and down into the dry canyons beyond. It was pretty-ish, she supposed. It wasn’t exactly the Lake District, but she did have to admit the views from here were stunning, especially up on the steep cliff face above them, where she had left the car before wandering down to find her erstwhile friend.

Stark must have read her mind. “You like it here?”

“It’s quite nice, actually.” She could imagine in the oppressive Southern California summer and fall that it would be rather cool there, a nice breeze off the ocean. Rose would like it. She could come and do that ridiculous sport of hers, surfing.

“I’m thinking about buying it.”

Of course he would. “And do what, build another love nest to deposit your unwanted liaisons?”

“Nope! This one would be all for me.” He set down his rod as he stood, sweeping an arm up over the ridge. “There’s an architect, Lautner is his name. I’ve been following some of his work for years now and I really like it. Anyway, he and I’ve been chatting on engineering and architecture, batting around ideas, and I think I want to build a house up there, just on the edge of the cliff.”

“You mean overlooking it?” She hoped he didn’t build a garish mansion like his one in Beverly Hills.

“No, I mean hanging off of it.” He was deadly serious as he eyed the craggy cliff face above. “We’ve been discussing aeronautics and engineering and want to try a few ideas out.”

“Don’t you already own a home in Los Angeles?”

“That old things? Some oil mogul built it 30 years ago, this would be something new, fresh, modern!” With that manic gleam in his eye, she watched as he sketched out in words his visions, all the relaxation of his now forgotten fishing pole gone. She could only shake her head occasionally nod and muse on Stark’s earlier point of fish having to swim, realizing that in this place, here, this was Howard Stark in his element.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind, the plot of land of Grandpa Stark that he had worked and farmed was the same one that Howard had purchased for the facility that would become the Avengers complex, with their lake house being not terribly far away. But that's just me in my mind (I may be a bit romantic myself).


	5. Green Are The Color Of Her Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Howard confronts Peggy on her temper.

She shouldn’t be angry. She had no reason to be, after all, it wasn’t as if she and Captain Rogers had any sort of understanding. Hell, they’d certainly done nothing more than eye each other longingly across the command room table and flirt outrageously in front of Barnes. Still, she thought she had felt...something from him the night before as she stood before him in that red dress, every eye in the pub on her while she only had eyes for him. Perhaps she had been wrong. Perhaps he had assumed that she cared about Barnes’ efforts to charm her into his orbit, a skill she imagined Barnes had used to great effect in front of Rogers before. Maybe he hadn’t realized that she had put her heart out there in the open for him, had been confessing something she had only recently realized, even if she suspected she had known for some time just how much she was attracted to him.

Her mood was still foul as she perussed the mission map, trying and failing to focus on the Commandos first mission, to Romania and a HYDRA based tucked in the Carpathian Mountains. Ignoring the snide thoughts that rain through her brain linking Private Lorraine to vampires, she instead chose to review intel notes, seeking holes in their information they would need to gather before she sent Rogers and his rambling cohort of misfits into the breach. So focused on it was she that she failed to noticed the swaggering steps scuffing up beside her until the familiar drawl of the only man she wanted to see less than Steven Rogers sounded beside her.

“You know, if I’d been wrong about those shields, you could have killed the guy.”

Peggy only rolled her eyes, cutting them sideways towards Howard Stark as he stood with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets, pretending he was eyeing the map in front of her. “You made every one of those shields. I doubt you made one that would fail under gunfire, else what would be the point?”

“I’m just saying I hadn’t tested any of them and if one had gone defective, you’d have had this conversation with Philips instead of me.” He shrugged, wandering around the table, picking up pieces they used for their war strategy movements and glanced at them before putting them down again, fiddling more than anything. “Want to tell me what’s eating you?”

“No,” she shot back, returning to the intelligence reports she was clearly not reading now.

“No offense, Carter, but in the time I’ve known you, you don’t tend to make it a habit to shoot at men unless they deserve it.”

“You’ve known me all of what? A few years?”

“Three, to be exact, and your stalling. Rogers isn’t exactly a bad guy, in fact, he’s furthest from. So what gives?”

“Captain Rogers is nothing more or less than what he is, a soldier, just like all the rest.”

“Ahh…” Stark nodded as if any of that was some sort of great insight, which Peggy had purposely tried to pretend it wasn’t.

“Ahh, what,” she snapped, glaring at the smirking man across the way.

“Ahh, it seems that the noble Agent Carter has been bitten by the green-eyed monster.”

She stared at him, torn between being angry at how delighted he looked or that he sussed it out. Instead, she chose indignation. “Don’t be preposterous!”

“You didn’t see Rogers’ picking up his jaw off the floor when you stormed out of there nor the way he slinked out like he was some sort of kicked puppy.”

She didn’t want to feel pleased at that, but she had to own she rather did. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, considering the attentions being paid to him already.”

“So you are jealous!”

She rolled her eyes, considering whether punching Stark was worth the effort. “What do you want, beyond bedeviling me?”

“Nothing, outside of asking you not to shoot my greatest creation before he gets to show off his stuff.”

Peggy wanted to point out that Stark wasn’t alone in the creation of Steve Rogers, but nodded all the same. “I promise not to murder him for being an insensitive prat. Now, are you happy?”

“Mostly, but maybe also lay off Rogers a bit. Guy’s gone for you and has the social grace of a hippo doing ‘Swan Lake’. I’ve never seen a man more clueless with women than him and it’s shocking considering he’s best friends with Barnes. Kinda sad, really.”

Stark’s words softened Peggy and her righteous anger somewhat, but only just. “I certainly couldn’t care less about what Captain Rogers feels about me.”

“Bullshit!” Stark dropped the curse, shaking his head. “Honestly, you like to pretend you are this virginal ice queen and I know you’ve been sweet on him since New Jersey.”

“Virginal?” She snorted, nearly feeling the need to remind him she had been engaged once, only to remember her romantic life was none of Howard’s business. “I’m a professional, unlike some people. I’m here doing a job and not trying to snag my latest conquest.”

“You talking about me or Private Lorraine?”

Peggy only glowered at him, but Stark was unrepentant.

“Come on, laugh a little. Besides, it’s not like everyone doesn’t know Lorraine has her eyes and claws in every handsome man who walks into Phillips' door.”

“Has that included you?” Peggy didn’t need to ask, she was certain it did and wasn’t shocked by Howard’s insolent shrug.

“I’m just saying she likes handsome men, there is nothing wrong with that, and Rogers isn’t exactly sure what to do with women who throw themselves at him like that. Kid freezes like a deer in headlights.”

Peggy wanted to point out Stark was not even a year older than Rogers, so calling him kid was a bit silly, but refrained. “I suppose a man who could rip a metal door off its hinges couldn't detangle himself from the clutches of Private Lorraine?”

“I’m not sure anyone could detangle themselves, she’s like a squid.” Stark shivered, whether from discomfort or something else, she didn’t even want to know. “Look, I’m just saying that chances are high she pounced, he didn’t know what to do about it and froze, and there he was when you came looking for him, that’s all.”

Peggy didn’t like admitting that Stark perhaps was right, that Rogers had likely just been cornered by the flirtatious, pretty Lorraine and unsure of what to even do about it, but she had a niggling feeling that was exactly what had happened. And he was also right, Steve Rogers was absolutely hopeless with women.

“So you are saying I shouldn’t have shot at him.” She at least finally cracked a smile at him.

“Hey, at least we now know the vibranium works and withstands fire at point-blank range, so you gave me that bit of data.”

She chuckled, shaking her head as she considered her actions. “I always had a nasty temper. I thought I had outgrown it.”

“Save it for Hitler. We may just win this war yet.” Stark rounded the table, patting her on the shoulder as he wandered past her. “One day, you two crazy kids need to admit your feelings for each other and get it over with, before the tension kills all of us.”

“Not when there is so much left to do.”

“Thinking like that, Carter, is why Lorraine felt she could pounce on him in the first place,” Stark shot back as he wandered out of the command room. “Consider it. You’ll both be happier for it.”

Peggy only stared after him, wondering if Stark wasn’t right after all.


	6. Headed For A New Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy says goodbye to her family for a second time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I heard the ideas for Agent Carter Season 3, specifically in regards to Michael, I had envisioned an idea for his family. Out of these ideas came a wife and a son who I grew rather fond of. Now that I've read up on some of those notes, however, I've more or less scrapped the idea in favor of a different concept, but Young Michael lives on in these one shots.
> 
> And yes, I did like the name of Sarah for a young war bride, and not just because it's also Steve's mother's name. It was a common enough name, and as a Jennifer I empathize with there being multiples of any one given name (especially in the Marvel universe).

“Twenty minutes to boarding for New York!” The porter’s voice called loudly across the crowd, gathered on the dock as they waited to either board or to tearfully see off their family to America for business, pleasure, or to move away from the sad, broken remains of London with its ruined buildings and empty halls. Since the opening of seaways many of her fellow countryman had abandoned their home, at least for now, looking for better opportunities elsewhere. Now Peggy was among them.

“”Did you pack enough warm things?” Her mother fussed, eyeing her handbag as if she would put such things in there.

“They do have shops in New York, Mother,” she teased lightly, looking to her father. Harrison Carter smiled benevolently.

“You will wire to us when you arrive in port there, correct?”

“Unlike the last time I left for America, yes.” She had never heard the end of it from her parents when she had written them from America, never having explained her leaving. She hadn't done much better when she had showed up mysteriously on their doorstep years later, having been reassigned to London by the SSR. The idea of military intelligence had not sat well with either of them as far as their only surviving child was concerned and Amanda had complained loudly that it wasn’t right that a mother should not know where her only daughter was. Unfortunately, for Amanda, Colonel Phillips didn’t see it that way.

“I don’t know if I like this at all.” It was the millionth time her mother had muttered this, shaking her head dolefully as she eyed the gray skies and the massive ship Peggy was taking across the ocean to New York. “Over in that country, alone, with no one there to provide you support.”

“I’ve lived there by myself once before, Mother. It’s not like this is the first time.” Peggy looked to her father, pleading. He sighed and shook his head, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“Manda, darling, she’ll be fine. After all, she’s fought in a war, it’s not like she doesn’t know how to take care of herself.” He looked on his daughter with all the pride her mother was not and Peggy found herself misty eyed as she nodded, resisting the urge to throw her arms around his now rather stout middle and never let go.

“He’s right, Amanda, it’s Peggy. Give her a pocket knife and some cello tape in the middle of the wilderness, she would come out in one piece with nary a hair or her lipstick out of place.” Sarah had finally wandered through the crowd from the toilets, pulling her sullen son behind her as his little red face resolutely turned to the ground and not up at his beloved aunt. Young Michael had not taken her departure from England at all well.

“I don’t know if I’d do as well as all that, Sarah, love. Perhaps if I had a gun as well.” She wrapped her arms around her willowy sister-in-law’s shoulders, hugging the other woman tight to her. “But I’ll write a lot and I will send you lots of photos for you to keep in your album. Perhaps I can send pictures of the Empire State Building and the Bronx Zoo for you, Michael.”

Her nephew, with all of his Carter obstinance, refused to even budge for the possibility of pictures of lions. “Don’t want photos.”

Peggy slipped her eyes to his mother, who only sighed and rolled her eyes at her son’s petulance. “It was all I could do to get him here this morning and he’s determined not to tell his aunt goodbye.”

She couldn’t blame him. Poor tot had lost so much in his life already, when he had things he could hold onto he clung to them, and Aunt Peg had been a favorite playmate. Now, she was leaving too, far across a giant ocean, in another country that he wouldn’t be able to see anytime soon. In sympathy, she crouched down to the boy’s level, leaning precariously on her heeled shoes, hands on her knees as she tried to coax his dark brown eyes up to hers.

“Michael, love,” she murmured, a gloved finger under his quivering, stubborn chin, tilting it up despite his efforts to not face her. He still wouldn't look her in the eye. “You won’t give your Aunt Peg a smile?”

He shook his head, his chin jutting out in a way she knew all too well.

“Why not?” She ran a thumb across one of his round cheeks, red from tears she knew he wouldn’t let fall now.

“You’re leaving again!” His tone was accusatory. “You said you were back from the war and you wouldn’t leave again, and now you are going away to ‘Maricuh’.”

“Well, yes, I did say that I wouldn’t be leaving again, didn’t I?” She should have known that she was making promises she had no hope of keeping with her nephew the minute she uttered that the summer before. She’d not been certain then, when the war had ended and the SSR was being reassigned and returned to America what role she would have in the new organization. Phillips had, of course vowed that the US Army would have to pry her out of his cold, dead fingers, but that had been months ago and with the war over, she wasn’t so sure his dogged determination could stand against the generals and the Congress of the United States. But, sure enough, she had received her cable from Phillips, as terse as the the man himself, with orders to take the first ship she could get to New York, and that he expected within two weeks to join the newly forming New York office. With all the haste she had developed working alongside him for years she had purchased her tickets and made ready to leave her family again, including the nephew who tearfully refused to tell her goodbye.

“Michael,” she murmured softly, her heart aching at how much he reminded her of his father. “I know I promised I would stay home, but I have a job now and it’s in New York, and I have to go there to do it.”

“I want to go with you!” His child’s lament was sharp in the hubbub and bustle of people around them boarding the ship with only minutes to spare.

“Oh, love!” She wrapped arms around his slim body, pulling him close to her, pressing a kiss to his dark hair below his cap. “Maybe someday you all can visit me there.”

“Yes, Michael, maybe one day we can take a ship across the sea.” Sarah sounded so certain, though Peggy knew that if it ever happened, it wouldn’t be for some time. 

Still, it seemed to cheer Michael up enough for him to look up at his mother, then at Peggy, before he threw his spindly arms around her neck, hugging her fiercely as he did, his little voice quavering. “I’ll miss you!”

“I know, my love. I’ll miss you as well.” She ignored the tear escaping down her own cheek. “But I’ll write and send you things and you can write me back. Can you do that?”

She felt rather than saw him nod his head as he snuggled into her shoulder. “Uh huh.”

“Okay, that’s a good lad.” She pulled away from him, wiping at the tears on his cheeks. “Be brave for your mummy, and write me often. I’ll be ever so lonely in New York. Who will play conkers with me?”

“When I come and visit, we can play.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his jumper, snuffling as his mother wrapped a soothing hand over his shoulder.

“Of course we will. I don’t think those American children know how to play.” She kissed his damp cheek fondly, leaving behind a bright red mark before turning up towards her sister-in-law. “I’ll miss you, Sarah, darling. You always have such good sense about everything.”

“I’ll miss you as well!” She waited till Peggy stood again to throw herself in her arms. “You’ll be in America living some glamorous life while I’m in England being boring.”

“Trust me, it’s not such a bad life you’ve got.” She knew her sweet, kind sister-in-law was far too much of a homebody to ever live in the madness Peggy thrived in. That was all right as far as she was concerned. The world needed all kinds of people, and besides, Sarah would keep her mother happy. She was always far more the daughter Amanda had wanted then Peggy was.

Which left her facing her mother and father again. Amanda wiped at watering eyes, but she put on a brave face as Peggy turned to her. “You’ll be safe in America?”

“I’ll have my weapon on me at all times and take down anyone who gets too fresh.”

Amanda at least smiled at that, a watery one that belied the tears in her eyes. “I wish you didn’t need to do either.”

“I know, Mother, but it’s my life and it’s what I want to do. I hope you can at least support me in that, even if you don’t agree.”

“Even if I did, could I stop you?” She had the long suffering sigh of a woman who had tried and failed many times over. “Just, please be safe. This world is built for and by men, dear, and they may chew you up and spit you out whether you like it or not.”

“They can bloody well try,” she replied, cocking a grin at her mother’s rather scandalized expression. “But I’ll be careful all the same, Mama.”

“Right, then.” She grabbed her in a fierce embrace before letting her go to her father. He said little, he wasn’t usually the kind who did, except in his legal briefs. He simply held his arms wide as she threw herself at him, practically burying herself in his wool overcoat that smelled of woodfire and pipe spoke and his favorite brandy. She wanted to bottle that scent forever, to keep it and remember home and safety and the comfort of her father.

“Steady on, old girl,” he hummed into her hair, holding her tight. “A Carter has never backed down from a fight. You’ll be alright.”

“I know,” she sniffed, thought it hardly made it at all easier.

“Be safe and come home once and a while to see your old father who loves you.”

“I will, Papa.” She pulled away, wiping her eyes before saluting him smartly. Then, before she could think twice about it, she turned on her heels and marched towards the gangplank to board. Her sturdy shoes clunked heavily on the metal as she took the hand of the porter there to help her on board, and she rushed to the side of the boat she could see them clearly, standing grouped together, her family. She had no idea when she would see them next or even if there would be a next time. A part of her screamed that this was all foolish, taking off to America, a woman on her own, and that she should go back now and forget all of this nonsense. But she was a Carter, as her father said, and they never backed down from a fight. She knew what her prospects were otherwise and didn’t relish being a secretary or coffee girl after the life of espionage and adventure she had been leading. Colonel Phillips requested her, fought for her, because he believed in her. She couldn’t let him down. Opportunities like this weren’t exactly plentiful for women, any women, and she needed to grab onto this and hold onto it for as long as she could, even if it meant leaving behind everyone she loved.

So she watched the little group of four on the dock as she waved sadly, the ship horn sounding to signal their departure. She could see Michael below with his hands over his ears, even as he called up to her, Sarah holding him tightly. Beside her Peggy’s parents held hands, her mother leaning her head on her father’s shoulder as she waved her handkerchief farewell. That was the sight she’d hold with her as she crawled her way across the Atlantic Ocean again, back to New York and its bustle, it’s corned beef sandwiches and bright yellow cabs, and the memories, both good and bad that came with the city. And on the worst nights, when she felt the loneliest, she would think of them, remind herself just who she was proving herself for.


	7. It Feels Easier To Just Swim Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy grapples with loss.

She tried hailing him for an hour and was met with static silence.

Morita was kind enough to try and find a signal on any of the strange instruments in Schmidt’s command post, Jones translating for him as they tried everything, but to no avail. He turned sad eyes to her, shaking his head when he knew he had no more ideas to give. “I’m sorry, Peg.”

She could only muster a shake of her head in tired resignation.

“If we called Howard…”

“He’s at Alamogordo right now, a whole continent away.” Jones had come to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Even if we could get him here in the next 24 hours…”

“It’s better than nothing,” Morita snapped, almost pleading.

“In the Arctic?” Peggy’s voice came out as a whisper. “He’s gone, Jim.”

Why was her voice cracking like that?

She didn’t recall much from those hours as their forces took inventory and stock of the massive fortress Schmidt had claimed as his own. She busied herself with Zola’s lab and the cabinets of blueprints, plans and research notes on hundreds of different inventions using the power of the strange, blue cube he had termed “the tesseract”. There was everything from weapons that shot bursts of energy, as she had seen on their storming of the fortress, to fighter planes, to metal robots for forced labor. She dutifully made note, catalogued, and boxed things without saying a word to any of the other soldiers there with her. She pretended not to notice their sidelong glances, the quiet worry that many of them failed to hide as she worked.

She didn’t know the time. She knew that at some point a well-meaning sergeant, not Bucky Barnes, wandered in and ordered everyone to base camp for the night, sheltered somewhere inside the massive structure. She waved the men on, continuing to work in the silence, alone as she tried not to dwell on the fact that just that morning she had wished Steve Rogers good luck as he had shot her his lopsided grin, climbed on his motorcycle, and ridden away with only his vibranium shield for protection. Now he was dead thousands of miles away.

“I gave general orders to bunk down for the night, Agent Carter.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised that it was Philips who found her huddled in the lab. She didn’t bother looking up as she continued to sort through files with half-frozen fingers.

“You did, sir, but as I can’t sleep I thought I would do something useful with my time.”

His steps were heavy on the cold concrete, echoing in the cavernous silence and dark. She could sense he was looking around, awed like so many of them were by the size of Schmidt’s operation. “Amazing that one man’s vision for the end of the world would look as big and fancy as this.”

She bit back a bitter smile. “You would keep your world domination plans smaller scale, sir?”

He sniffed, whether in irritation for her impudence or lack of appreciation for her wit, she couldn’t tell. He eyed what looked like an operating table in the middle of Zola’s space with a jaundiced eye. “You come across what he was doing with that thing?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure we can guess.” She remembered all too well what Barnes had to say about his captivity and shivered.

He stared at it long moments, wandering around it, hands shoved into his trousers as he memorized its angles. He was was silent as he did so till he came around the other side, shaking his graying head ruefully before turning back to her. “You know, when I was young, I wanted to be a doctor.”

She wasn’t sure why she was surprised by that, but she was. “I didn’t know that, sir.”

He wandered towards her, gaze still half on the operating apparatus as he came to lean against the metal counter she worked at. “My father was the town doctor. He’d served on the losing side of the Civil War and afterwards wanted to do anything but cut another teenage boy’s leg off. So he treated coughs and colds, delivered babies, and didn’t talk about the grizzly side of what it meant being a doctor. So I go off to West Point, head full of the glory of battle, thinking I’d save some general’s life on the battlefield. Declared myself pre-med and thought I’d shine at it. First time I did an anatomy class and they had me in an operating theater looking at a procedure being done, I passed out cold.”

His story at least elicited a limp smile from Peggy. She had a hard time imagining her hard-nosed, grizzled commanding officer being squeamish now at the sight of gore, not after everything else he’d seen. “So, you went for the more sedate sciences?”

“Engineering involved less invasive surgery,” he offered by way of explanation. “You don’t have to sit by a bedside and watch a boy you spent hours stitching back together after he stepped the wrong way on a land mine die before your eyes despite it all. Maybe that makes me a coward, who knows, but weapons development was far less personal. A bomb doesn’t have a face or a name. It doesn’t have a mother and father back home who worry if they’ll come back or a sweetheart who is waiting for them to return.”

Peggy’s heart lurched at the mention of a sweetheart. “Captain Rogers had a face and a name. His mother and father were gone, but he still had people in Brooklyn, the Barnes family. He lost Bucky, but he had friends. He didn’t have a sweetheart, but he had…”

She didn’t say herself and she wouldn’t. Theirs had been a friendship of comrades in arms, never lovers, for all the longing looks and quiet promises of dances someday. That their one and only kiss was in Schmidt’s speeding car with Philips behind the wheel seemed almost criminal as she considered all the many opportunities and lost chances. Now, all she had was the memory of his soft lips against hers, surprised as she tried to impress years of longing, fierce pride, and hopeful return into a single moment.

“Now, we both know that’s not true, don’t we.” Philips called her out as surely as if she had said it. “You two may not have called it that, but I was the one caught in meetings with the pair of you making gooey eyes at each other. I thought the compass schtick was bad enough.”

Despite herself, big, fat tears welled to the edges of her eyelashes and try as she might she couldn’t seem to trap them and keep them from falling down her face. “He’s not the only soldier we’ve lost, sir, and he won’t be the last until this is all done.”

“No, he isn’t, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” His voice was gravelly and soft, full of compassion that she heartily wished he’d keep to himself as her heart fissured and threatened to shatter. “And it should hurt, Carter, right down to the bone. It reminds us we are still human, despite all this madness.”

Her only response was to sob, a keening noise that caught her by surprise, shocked she could even make it. Her face crumpled as she caught herself on the edge of the counter, a crazed desire to not sob all over the precious documents spinning her around against it as she hunched her shoulders, trying to collapse as small as she could. She didn’t want to cry, she shouldn’t cry, not like this, ugly and catastrophic, in front of her commanding officer. She’d hear it in the morning about women and emotions, her loss of her stiff upper lip. But even as that thought fluttered to life, she felt Philip’s arm wrap around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest as she continued to sob. Heedless of his uniform or the cosmetic she was surely getting all over it, she felt the well of hurt and loss pull up from deep inside of her, for everything; her lost brother, a ruined country, and a love that could have been had she only been brave enough to take it. Everything from nearly six years of war welled up inside of her and she found herself drowning in her grief as she clung to this man who she had spent as much time bucking heads with as obeying. In his gentlemanly, old mannered way, he politely comforted her till the worst of it all subsided, neither shying away from it nor chastising her for it.

It was later, she wasn’t sure how much later, when she pulled away, her face swollen and dewey as she cringed in horror at the mess she left behind on his khaki shirt. Shame and exhaustion flickered a she bowed her head, trying to wipe at her tears stained face.

“Try using one of these.” Under her nose, a clean, neatly pressed white, linen handkerchief appeared. With trembling fingers she took it, regretting she messed the clean whiteness with her tears as she scrubbed at the traces under her eyes and down her nose.

“I expect I look a right sight.” She snuffled as she indelicately blew her nose, something Philips was polite enough to overlook.

“Well, you do look like hell, Carter, but so do all of us.”

She wasn’t sure if she was comforted by that. It felt so overwhelming, too hard, too much. She wanted to sink into it and never come up for air, to just stay below it all and never return.

He spoke again into the mournful quiet. “I may have never had to sit by the bedside of a patient, but I’ve had to see many die all the same. It doesn’t get easier, but you do learn to carry on, to put one foot in front of the other, to continue living even when they are gone.”

She nodded. She thought she had learned this lesson with Michael. Hadn’t she just given this lecture to Steve himself about Bucky? “I imagine we will all spend the rest of our lives haunted by their ghosts.”

“Maybe we will. I suppose that means we have to not fuck this up.”

She snorted, a wet laugh as she nodded. “I suppose so, sir.”

He gave her a final, comforting squeeze before letting her go, straightening himself up. “Just so you know, I have most of the Canadian air force not on this side of the Atlantic and half the Greenlandic fishing fleet up there looking for him.”

They had no idea where he even landed or if they could even see him. “I hope they find him.”

“I do as well.”

They remained there in pensive silence for long moments before Philips pushed himself away from the counter, shoving his hands back into his trouser pockets. “Right, finish up here, Carter. Clean yourself up. Be in camp in an hour.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded smartly, despite her swollen face and wool-filled head. He shot her a soft, sad smile before wandering out, and she waited till he was gone, turning back to the papers at hand, heart aching as she hoped against hope they did find something. At least then she’d get a chance to say a proper goodbye.


	8. Lightening Crashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy is on a mission.

Germany had changed in the 20 years since the war, since the Howling Commandos, since Bucky Barnes...since Steve Rogers. It was now divided, of course, split between east and west, Communist and Democratic, the Russians and all the other Allies. The lines which divided it were arbitrary at best, political arguments that tore families away from each other in the aftermath of war. The politics of fear and distrust had turned into something tangible enough, a wall that split the country apart, a stretch of concrete and razor wire that snaked through city and countryside, barring one group from another and, unfortunately for Peggy, that man made boundary was right in the middle of her way.

She’d been stuck Mödlareuth for a week, watching. It was a small town, not as easy to hide in as Berlin, but much easier to escape out of. She was posing as a Russian archivist, there documenting the various effects of the new walls placement on the town, all the while she searched for an old HYDRA archive that was rumored to be buried somewhere within the town itself. Thus far, she’d not found anything on the East German side of the wall and she was beginning to suspect that she needed to move her search to the other side. Unfortunately, a combination of unceasing spring rain and the particular attentiveness of the East German guard at the singular gate crossing meant she couldn’t reliably get through on her fake papers. So she waited, as lightning crashed and the creek that marked the border swelled and she stood by, unable to move forward or continue her investigation. She hated waiting.

She busied herself in the town. If she couldn’t continue her investigation, she could at least gather intelligence under her cover. She found a lot to take note of, even in the closed community. She learned of the baker who was cut off from his twin brother who had lived on the other side of town. It was a similar story to the widow who lost her husband during the war and her entire family ended up on the Bavarian side of the wall, and she was left alone. Everywhere she went in Mödlareuth there were similar stories, the tale of a town which had prospered for well over a century as one singular entity across a provincial border now split in two by political ideas beyond their own control. Now it was they who had to pay the price.

There was one man, however, who profited from all of this heartache and he wasn’t hard to find, considering what he did. Ernst Steinbach was the town tailor, or at least that was what his open profession was. Behind the scenes, he ran an underground ring of blackmarket goods that had tendrils that reached to Berlin, trading in everything from pre-made items, to contraband materials, to blacklisted books, all of which were sold for a premium, of course. Steinbach’s side business prospered because of his connections. Frankly as the towns only reputable tailor, his clientele meant that he developed the sort of connections that one would want to make in this business - party men and local government officials - all of whom got a small percentage of the profits in exchange for turning a blind eye to Steinbach’s illegal travel back and forth through the small checkpoint to the West German side, often with items that would get him imprisoned, at best, should he be found with it. He was either incredibly brave, incredibly greedy, or incredibly smart to try any of it.

Right now, Peggy found him incredibly useful as she wandered into his shop, brushing off rain and ignoring the flash of lightning as she stepped inside. It was a cozy place, filled with fabrics and notions and the sort of clutter one found in a tailor shop. Steinbach stood behind the counter, smiling beatifically from a round face on his small frame.

“Good morning, fraulein, how can I be of assistance?”

His German was slightly off from the more formal variety she learned in school, but she understood it well enough. “I was told you would be able to fix the zipper on my best dress.”

His smile didn’t falter, not even once. “I could do such a thing, yes, but it would come at a charge.”

“How much?”

He lifted his shoulders, thinking. “Mmmm, 500.”

“I see.” She pursed her lips, as if considering. “It is steep, that is for sure.”

“But you won’t find anyone else in town as good.”

That much was sure. “Could we possibly discuss in the back?”

“Of course!” He nodded dutifully as he went to close up his shop while she arranged her very prim and proper woolen suit in his full length mirror, watching his actions the entire time. He was a cautious little man. He nonchalantly looked up one side of the street and down the other as he pulled down the curtains in his windows and door, locking the second as he flipped a sign that said “Closed for the afternoon” in German on the front. He took one last peek out of the window of his front door before turning to her with a much more sly manner. “Now, fraulein, let us discuss.”

She turned from the mirror at his request, following to the small, private office in the back, where he kept his sewing room and a desk for which to handle his accounts. She pretended not to notice a work area filled with boxes and boxes of items. She guessed contraband. He settled behind a simple wooden desk, covered in a mess or receipts, invoices, and patterns.

“Let us not beat around the bush, then, shall we?” He was polite as he opened a drawer, removing from it a bottle of schnapps and two small tumblers beside it. For a moment, she thought of Abraham Erskine and his precious bottle he had from his hometown.

“I would prefer not.” She dropped the prim and proper facade of a Russian tourist, all business as she took the clear liquid from his outstretched hand. “I have heard from several you are the man to go to when there are things that need to be gotten through”

He shrugged gamely, offering a self-effacing smile that wasn’t quite as genuine as he pretended it was. “I’m flattered to be thought of so highly, but I must admit, I usually do not carry things through as much as carry things back. On occasion, a note or letter to the other side, yes, but that makes me little more than a postman.”

“I’m afraid this will be more than a letter.”

“I’m sure exceptions can be made for a price. What is it you wish to send over?”

“Me.”

Here, Steinbach spluttered, coughing on his liquid. Peggy waited, politely, before he shook his red face in mild alarm.

“I’m sorry, fraulein, I do not carry people over.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“Then you’ve heard wrong,” he shot back, firmly. “Many apologies for what you may have been told, but I deal in a very specific market and have a particular arrangement for it. Such things would jeopardize the understanding I have with the authorities…”

“Ones who might not like that you’ve been consorting with a Western spy.”

“Spy? What spy?” His blue eyes widened wildly in his face, disbelieving at Peggy’s slow smile. “I’ve never consorted with spies on the other side, only businessmen! Everyone in town knows it!”

“Who do you think you are consorting with now?” She was taking a wild chance, she knew it, but she dropped it waiting for realization to hit him as he swallowed hard, his mouth working as he groped for words.

“You are? I thought you were….”

“A Russian tourist, I know.” She shrugged, leaning back in her seat. “I’m a British citizen who lives in America, if that helps. I’m a woman with a husband, children, a fine home in New York and a life I’d very much like to get back to if I could get back home.”

He simply blinked at her, stupidly. “You are a spy?”

“I thought we had established this already, Herr Steinbach. Yes, I am and I simply want to get back to the Western side of this town so I can finish my job and go home. I’m willing to meet your price and more if you are willing to do as I ask.”

“And if I don’t, then you’ll blackmail me?” He was angry now, understandably so. Peggy was indeed blackmailing him and rather shamelessly at that.

“I wouldn’t except the rains have set me back and I want to go home. My daughter’s tenth birthday is this week. I’d like to be home for that.”

He could only stare at her.

“Look,” she sighed, leaning forward, causing the other man to lean back. “I’m not interested in ruining you or your life. I can even sweeten the deal for you on the other side, put you in contact with people I know.”

Suspicious crept into the man’s fear, his gaze narrowing. “Like who?”

“Anyone, really. I know many people.”

“Many people who would benefit me how?”

Peggy considered. “I”m close personal friends with Howard Stark, if you’ve heard of him.”

The man clearly had, even on this side of the Berlin Wall. “He’s said to be the richest man in America.”

“One of them, yes.” She always had to remind him of that, else Howard’s already outmoded ego would get even bigger. “He knows people, lots of them, and, perhaps there would be those willing to turn your efforts into something more.”

Greed always did trump fear and she could see Steinbach doing his own political calculus. Finally, with a shaky breath, he nodded. “Fine, I’ll do it. It will cost you 1000 up front, though, and you better bring me something out of this or you’ll never be able to show your pretty face in Mödlareuth again.”

“Fair enough.” She reached a hand across the desk to shake on it. He took it with a hesitant gesture before informing her he would meet her at the back of the shop at 9 pm and to dress nicely. She didn’t question it as she nodded and left.

At 8:55 that evening she arrived in the narrow, crooked alley that ran behind the quaint row of shops that held Steinbach’s own place of business. The yellowish light from the soda lamps above created halos in the rain as she pulled her coat tighter around her lovely dress, her far from serviceable heels already soaked through as they tapped across the broken pavement. She was wet and miserable already underneath her umbrella, but she did as she was asked and walked up to the little wooden stoop that serviced the tailor shop. With a sharp wrap of knuckles she announced her presence and saw a light above the door wink out. She would have to teach this enterprising tailor a thing or two about covertcy and espionage, as he was rather poor at it.

He bundled out the door in a large, wool overcoat and hat, popping open his own umbrella. “You are ready, then?”

She nodded only as she followed him to his vehicle, a BMW that had to have been from the war days, judging from the make of it. He was gentlemanly enough to open the door for her as she closed her umbrella and settled inside, waiting as he did the same.

“You have no suitcase?”

“No,” she replied, not bothering to explain that it was far too cumbersome to carry one of those. In her purse she had her papers for her cover, some East German currency, and a lipstick case. Under her skirt she had her gun, sleek against the outside of her thigh, and a knife on the other one, just in case. In her bra she had tucked a small, but effective, one shot electric stunner that Stark had made her, good at knocking people down temporarily in a fight. She was prepared for the worst, but hoped for the best.

Lightning flashed as the car started and the rain began to fall in earnest.

Steinbach was nervous, she could tell. “You’ve done something like this before?”

“More than a few times,” she replied, absently scanning the spattered landscape around them as they drove towards the wall that ran east and west in the town.

“Against the Communists?”

He said it in such a way that made Peggy wonder just how beholden he actually was to the people he beguiled into allowing him to run across the border. “Against Nazis too.”

His eyes only cut sideways at her. “You couldn’t have been more than a girl then!”  
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” she laughed, thinking that he wasn’t really wrong. She’d been only nineteen when Michael died and she’d joined the SOE. Had it really been twenty-five years already?

If Steinbach was shocked, he hardly showed it. “I was young, as well. Too young to fight at first and by the time I was old enough, the Russians were here and I began working for them to just to live. Most of us did in this town, you know. We didn’t get a choice about who was here, who ruled us, who had a say. First Hitler, then the Communists, I’m sure there will be someone different someday, but we will always be here, us people living in this town, cut off from our neighbors, cut off from the rest of the world. You...you can leave here and go back to New York and see your American family. Me, this is my home, the only one I have. So, I make to the best way I know how.”

The profoundness of his statement caught her off guard, mostly as it surprised her he made it at all. On paper, Steinbach looked like a rank opportunist, making money off of a bad situation. She hadn’t expected it to be much deeper than that. “You profit well enough off your earnings.”

“That I do, to be sure.” He didn’t seem sorry about that. “You don’t know about where the profits go. I don’t live in a palace here, not that I could without drawing someone’s attention. I use what I have to take care of my mother, my sister and her grown children, my neighbors and others. A lot goes to bribing the officials to look the other way when we need to. Sure, it comes at a cost to someone, but doesn’t most freedom? I bring you the contraband you seek and you pay for a bit of sunshine in a dreary place. It all works out.”

It was a different perspective, Peggy granted. She wondered how long it would last, however, for sooner or later Steinbach’s luck would run out. There would be a security guard who couldn’t be bribed or a government official who asked too high a price, or some police officer who would start asking too many questions about the goods they ran across, and the tidy side venture he had would crumble into dust.

“You could always defect, you know. Just go to the West and not come back.”

“I could,” he admitted slowly. “I’ve thought of it. It would be easy. But my family is here and they don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave them. Why should I have to leave my home?”

Peggy wanted to tell him that sometimes people didn’t get a choice.

In the distance she could see the white guard tower loom, like a ghost in the wet darkness, lit by flood lights that steamed in the cool rain. No other traffic would be attempting to get through the gate at this time of night, so they came to the checkpoint alone, the guard blinking in the light of Steinbach’s aged BMW. 

Peggy could hear him murmur beside her. “They aren’t the normal guards here on duty.”

She stiffened. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered back as they watched him pull to a stop, looking rather bored. “Smile and act natural.”

Funny, she thought, swallowing her irritation, she was the spy here, used to this sort of behavior. Steinbach rolled down his passenger window as the bored and stern looking guard wandered up. “Good evening, herr, I’ve got my paperwork here.”

The guard, a young man in his twenties, if Peggy could guess, leaned his angular face inside. “You have papers?”

Steinbach didn’t even flinch. He was all charm as he reached across Peggy’s lap to the glove box, pulling out a well-used folder. “Of course, my friend. Everything’s right here.”

He passed the folder into the guard’s hand. “You’re new here. Reinhardt out sick?”

“Don’t know, just got orders today.” The man didn’t seem to know or care who Reinhardt was. If Peggy hazarded a guess, he was likely the fellow that Steinbach had been expecting. “The woman, she got any papers?”

“The woman has a name,” she muttered tartly, passing over her papers that indicated her status as a Russian national. “Zaveta Grigorievna.”

The guard wasn’t impressed with her bluster. “One moment.” He wandered from their car to his shack, where another guard kept an eye on them as he examined their papers.

“This isn’t good,” Steinbach muttered, cutting eyes at her as he rolled up his window against the rain. “You shouldn’t have been short with him.”

“If I wasn’t, he’d suspect I was trying to hide something, being indignant would be a natural reaction for a woman being spoken of as if she wasn’t there.”

“If you say so,” he replied as the guard returned, papers in hand. They were damp with rainwater as Steinbach opened the window and the guard shoved them back inside.

“You are free to go.” He nodded, gesturing to the guard inside, who raised the gate that blocked the road to the Western controlled side of the town.

Peggy could almost feel Steinbach sigh with relief as he began to roll up the window. “Than you, sir. Have a good....”

“Hold on!” The man paused, frowning at the back of Steinbach’s trunk. The tension rose again as Peggy went immediately on alert. “What’s in your trunk?”

She could see something twitch in Steinbach’s face before he smiled, laughing. “Oh, just the usual, my bags, likely some notions and fabric. The usual things.”

The guard still eyed it suspiciously. “Care to open it up?”

Steinbach’s face never faltered, but she could see him nearly stop breathing. “Of course, if you would like.”

Just what did he have in there?

He rolled up his window, turning off the car to get to his keys, giving Peggy a panicked look as he gingerly opened the heavy car door, stepping out into the rain. Peggy sat where she was, wondering what he possibly could have in the trunk that would have him so afraid. She reached under her long coat and skirts, feeling for the weapon on her leg. Behind her, she could here the metallic pop and creak of the trunk opening up as Steinbach’s voice filtered back.

“I’ll have to admit, that of course, there are a...few other things in here that are perhaps a bit eyebrow raising.” He had the nervous, jovial tone of someone trying to pass off something he fully well knew was illegal to the officials, hoping his charm would get him off with it. “You know, just some things to smooth over my business associates.”

There was the click of a weapon being engaged and Peggy felt her heart sink.

“Step away from the vehicle, please.” The young guard’s voice was as firm as the tall concrete walls around them as Steinbach began to stammer.

“I don’t understand, what is wrong…”

“Stand back from the car. We’ll have to search.”

Peggy eyed the other guard, now out of the shack with his own weapon, eyeing Peggy where she sat in the passenger seat.

“Tell the woman to get out of there.” The guard in the back was ordering Steinbach, likely at gunpoint.

“Zaveta, dear!” She could hear him calling her, a quaver of terror in his voice. “If you could come out.”

She sighed. She had been hoping to avoid this. She did as she was asked, though, stepping out of the vehicle carefully, her impractical shoes crunching in the wet gravel as she held her hands up. “Ernst, darling, what is wrong.”

“Just a bit of a setback, Zaveta, that’s all.” He nodded towards the trunk where the guard was pouring over bottles of some sort of liquid. She guessed that wasn’t all.

“You realize this is strictly controlled material you have in your trunk, correct?” The first guard snapped at Steinbach as the second came around to the passenger’s side of the car, weapon trained on Peggy.

“Well, yes, but it’s never been a problem before. I meet my associates and I bring a present, nothing more.”

The guard was clearly making it something more. She had a feeling that he was young, new and untried and using this opportunity to shine in the ranks in a small, backwater town like Mödlareuth. For all that it was called “Little Berlin” it was hardly cosmopolitan, and this one had all the earmarks of one who wanted to make his way up in the world.

Steinbach still believed he could talk his way out of this. “Look, my friend, if you like it, I can leave you with a bottle. Maybe another for your friend, here, too, eh? I know how it is to be young, perhaps a bit of pocket money for the weekend, so you can take your girlfriend out…”

He didn’t finish his thought as the guard shoved his weapon in Steinbach’s face. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

Peggy felt herself go on high alert as the guard to her right cocked his own weapon. Her right hand twitched on her hip, inching the fabric of her skirt and coat up just the slightest bit.

Steinbach whimpered as he stared at the cold metal in his face. “Why...I’m just being friendly…”

“It’s the likes of you in no-name crossroads that gives us all a bad name!” He glared at the tailor, distaste twisting his young features. “You think that you can run back and forth to our enemies with impunity and it doesn’t matter what filth you bring back with you to peddle on the streets.”

“They are friends, not enemies,” Steinbach tried to reply, but the young man only shoved his weapon further into his face.

“Spoken like a true enemy of the state,” the guard replied, eyes glinting in the wet. “I believe that means we will have to take you in, Herr Steinbach, you and the woman too.”

Peggy could only sigh loudly with exasperation. “For the last time, I am not ‘the woman’!”

The guard turned to her as his compatriot shouted at her to shut up, but Peggy listened to neither. Instead, she pulled her sodden skirts up, whipping out the gun with her right hand, the knife with her left. Without looking she hit the guard to her right, downing him to the gravel with a sloppy crunch before the one holding Steinbach could blink. She turned on him, but even as she pivoted, he gathered his wits about him enough to grab the tailor and hold him, a gun to his head.

“Drop it or he dies,” the guard screamed as Steinbach whimpered in the other man’s arms, shaking with the wet cold and the fear of the metal to his head.

Peggy didn’t waiver, her gun trained on them both. “Let him go and I won’t kill you.”

The guard shook his head, stubbornly. “You first.”

Well, if he was going to be that way about it.

“Fine.” She sighed, bending down to lay down her gun in the muddy rocks, careful to not lose eye contact with the target. He watched her as she stooped below eyeline by the car, setting the gun down. Below where he could see, she transferred her knife into her right hand, standing back up slowly.

“Hands in the air,” he ordered as she rose again. She flipped the knife around in her palm, enough to throw it. As she lifted her hand, she pivoted enough of her weight to throw it at the guard’s unprotected head.

On the up side, it hit him. On the down side, she still missed, getting him in his right shoulder. It was still enough for Steinbach to scramble away as Peggy threw herself around the end of the car and at the guard, bowling him over in the wet, knocking him into a puddle as he grappled with the knife in his shoulder. In the darkness, lightning flashed as they struggled. He managed to pull the knife out to wield on her, pushing her off to leap at her, the knife glittering, slick with his own blood. She dodged as he fell in in the puddle, struggling to get up.

She reached into her blouse for the device Stark had gifted her. It had been meant mostly as a deterrent, particularly for the “handsy” sort Peggy got on cases. But in this scenario, it worked just as well. She whipped out the metallic wand with its rubber handle and thumbed the button on the side. Just as the guard threatened to lunge from where he lay prone, she shoved it right against the side of his exposed neck. The sight wasn’t pretty. Alone, she knew it could fell a man, but he was a wet man laying in a puddle and it was much worse. His entire body twitched as he screamed in agony. She felt tingles in her own feet as the voltage released, the man convulsing and twitching uncontrollably until he stopped, falling limp.

If he was alive or dead, she didn’t even know. She swallowed hard against the revulsion she felt as she turned the device off, tucking it away in a pocket, ignoring the smell of burnt human flesh and ozone as she turned on her heel, glancing at Steinbach’s trunk. In there, a crate of clear liquid sat, the price of 2 men’s lives and their own escape. She wanted to rail at him, call him foolish, but she instead chose to close the trunk.

“In the car, quickly, before someone notices.”

The little man didn’t need telling twice. He clambered over the guard’s body as he got to the driver’s seat, Peggy returning to her own, picking up her gun and knife along the way, as he began the engine once more. He quickly pulled the car through the checkpoint and out to the other side. For several long moments, they were quiet, neither saying anything as Peggy tried to block out the young man’s screams of agony.

“You’ll have to stay on the Western side you know.” She broke the silence finally as they came across to the Western checkpoint. Steinbach, shaken, only nodded.

“If you do, we can help you, get your mother and sister and her family across. You can stay here in this side of town, build up your business again.”

Steinbach managed a dry scoff as he glanced her way, morose. “Who is ‘we’?”

Peggy had no time to answer as they pulled up to the gate. Their papers lay on the seat between them, but Peggy got out as the guards on that side pulled their weapons in an already familiar site. Perhaps they heard something of the ruckus on the other side. She ignored them as she fished into the collar of her dress, fishing out the pendent nestled against her chest and gently unclasping it from around her neck. She held it up, shining silver in the streaming light of Steinbach’s car.

“I’m Margaret Carter with SHIELD. Open the gate and let us in.”

A guard stepped forward, not even bothering to raise his gun. He flashed a light on the silver in her hand and the stylized eagle hanging daintly off the chain, but he didn’t take. Instead, he only nodded, smiling.

“Agent Carter,” he replied in accented English. “We were told to look for you if you came through. You brought a guest?”

“Ernst Steinbach. I think you know him.”

The familiar smirk that crossed the man’s face indicated he did. “Is he coming into the fold, then?”

“I’m afraid he will have to after what I did back there.”

The guard nodded. “Tell him to come in, slowly.”

She got back into the car, instructing Steinbach who pulled into the checkpoint where they hardly bothered doing more than looking at the shaken Steinbach’s passport before wishing both good night. They drove through in silence, save for Peggy’s instructions to drop her off near the safe house she had in town. He did as she asked without comment, turning silently through the sleepy streets.

“Here is where you stop.” She waved to the side of the cobbled road where he pulled up, water splashing under his tires. Steinbach was shell shocked and wide eyed as he stared at her, clearly unsure as to what his future held next.

“Do you have a place to go?”

He nodded, scrubbing at his worn expression. “Yes, a hotel I frequent on this side. They are used to me coming in all hours.”

“Good.” She handed him the pendent that she still had wrapped around her fingers, passing it into his trembling palm. “There is an office in Bonn, across the central market from the Altes Rathaus. There is a building with a gray door. Present this there when you go in and state you spoke to Peggy Carter.”

He blinked at it in the dim light from outside. “And my family?”

“I’ll work on bringing them over. You have my word.”

She felt badly for him, sitting there in the darkness as lightning flashed overhead, just enough to illuminate the uncertainty and sadness that crossed his face. “I hadn’t expected any of this.”

“Do any of us?” He likely said the same thing during the war.

He pocketed the charm. “I will say goodnight then, Agent Carter.”

“Goodnight, Herr Steinbach.” She climbed out of the car into the rain, taking her umbrella with her. She watched as it drove off into the wet darkness, turning up ahead, before she stepped down the block, around a corner, and into a door tucked behind a set of garbage cans and a stack of crates. She pressed the button under the doorknob, scowling into the camera above as a door buzzed. She stepped inside, dripping over the grated metal as an accented voice sounded from the ceiling.

“Password, please?”

“I desire a chance to dry myself off and sleep.” She knew only one of those words was what they wanted and sure enough, the light flipped on over the elevator across from her as it rose, opening as she wandered in, yawning loudly. When the doors opened below to the lounge of a suite she nearly cried at the warm fire and bottle of Scotch waiting for her.

“I thought you could use it, Director.” The young agent, Klaus she thought was his name, smiled as she passed him her umbrella, complete with the needed files inside.

“Yes, well the trip was hellish. Found nothing of the HYDRA base, am hoping to find out something more on this side.” She helped herself to a tumbler as she kicked off her sodden shoes. “And I may have ruined a man’s life on top of it all.”

“That’s unfortunate.” Klaus was preoccupied with umbrella, finding the secret compartment, popping it open to find the rolls of magnetic tape.’’

“Yes, well, I’ve sent him to our office in Bonn for relocation.” Small thanks for just performing a simple service and having his life changed forever. “He’d been foolish, playing the odds. They worked against him this time.”

“It’s a damn shame people caught on the other side feel they have to go to such extremes.”

“Mmm, yes.” She hummed as she stared into the fire, slowly warming her chilled skin. “It just so happens they happened to live on the other side of the water and we decided to arbitrarily cut them all off from each other.”

Sometimes the arbitrariness of it all was exhausting.

“Is there any way you can ring up my home on a private extension.”

“Yes, Director. Give me a moment, I’ll pop down to the lab to deliver these.”

“Good.” She sighed, sipping at her alcohol as she let it and the fire warming her. She nearly drowsed, curled up in the warm leather, until the phone rang on the oak side table beside her. She picked it up, grinning as she answered. “Good morning, darling!”

“Hi, Mommy! How is your trip?” Her daughter’s brightness drove what little cold lingered.

“Cold and wet! It’s utterly boring, I fear. However, it’s your birthday!”

She hated to say that all thoughts of Steinbach, alone and separated from his home fled in the light of her daughter’s laughter and the conversation with her family as they were celebrating the day in New York.


	9. Like Water In A Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Daniel discuss their own relationship histories.

It had been far longer than she cared to think about since she had been with anyone. There had been the promise of one...yes, but that promise was gone now, lost on a sea of missed chances. She could have missed out on this one as well, had she not seized the chance when she it presented itself.

Howard’s beach house sat in the quiet cove, nothing but trees, sand and rocks, with the Pacific waves wearing down the black basalt. Peggy watched it, curled in a deck chair, worn and weather-beaten, wrapped in a wooly, itchy blanket, the morning sun not yet over the cliff face, though it glittered off the distant, lacy spume. She sipped from her steaming cuppa, her mind a thousand places and nowhere, the most relaxed she had felt in years, perhaps since before the war, when she’d been little more than a schoolgirl.

Inside the cabin she could hear the now familiar thump and shuffle of Daniel as he wandered about, having slept far later than she. He stumbled out, dark hair tousled, eyes still sleepy, in his pajama trousers and a robe that he half-heartedly wrapped around himself as he hopped to the bench beside her, his false leg off, the long leg of it pinned at the knee so not to trail behind him. He was clearly still not awake as he flopped beside her, grunting as he lolled in the protesting wood, his head landing on the back as he closed his eyes again.

“Rough dreams, love?” She didn’t need to ask, she knew. She reached across to run fingers through his hopeless hair.

“Yeah.” He said nothing more for not, and she didn’t ask. They both mutually understood the demons they each carried.

“It’s why I let you sleep.”

“How long you been up?”

“A while.” She was vague as she yawned, reaching for her tea. “Watching the ocean in soothing.”

“You have nightmares too?”

“Mmmm…” She danced around that reply as she snuggled further into her blankets. “What shall we do today?”

“Sleep?”

She snorted, slapping the top of his head lightly. “Not all day?”

“Sex is always an option.”

“As tempting as that is, it’s not all day either.”

“Oh, to be seventeen again.”

“Poor darling, am I wearing you out?”

“I’m not complaining?” His dark eyes opened enough to give her a wicked wink.

“Well, if you weren’t keeping up so well, I’d not be nearly so demanding.”

“Well, I may not be seventeen, but I do what I can.”

Her laugh rang out across the cove. It felt good to laugh so freely. “You do amazing.”

“Good.” He reached up for her hand on his scalp, pulling it down for a brief kiss on her palm. “I’m not going to lie, I was a bit worried, perhaps, about the two of us….you know?”

She found the fact that his cheeks flushed pink incredibly adorable. “Why in the world would you worry about a thing like that?”

“I don’t know, a guy worries.” He roused more to shrug in that sheepish way that made him look all of twelve. “I mean, not that I’ve, you know, made it a habit to...well...yeah.”

He was making a muddle of this.

“Didn’t you and Violet ever?”

“Well, sure, a bit, if I’m honest, but, it’s not like I was Stark or anything.”

“No one is Howard Stark and thank God for that.” She shuddered, recalling the long list of women she and Jarvis had to consult with after Howard had loved them and left them. “Besides, it’s 1947, not 1847, and I’m not in a corset and crinolines waiting to faint on you for impure thoughts.”

“Oh, good, because the turn of your ankle certainly gives me some of those.”

“Oh, wretched man,” she teased, feigning a far more posh accent than she ever used. “My mother would be scandalized by the likes of you.”

“Her daughter was in the military and I’m the one who would scandalize her?”

“Well, she’s old fashioned, you know.” She tried to imagine her mother’s reaction to her sitting on the front porch of a rickety cabin on the coast of California with a man she wasn’t married to, half-dressed and obviously having been up to things a lady shouldn’t be up to. Knowing her mother, she’d likely have pretended that it wasn’t happening at all.

Daniel’s laughter was almost as easy as her own was. “I don’t want her thinking I’ve somehow sullied her precious daughter.”

That made Peggy snort loudly. “Oh, my sweet boy, you’ve sullied nothing.”

“Oh, I realize. I’m not a total idiot and you are your own woman. I learned that the minute you walked into the office.”

“Good,” she replied primly, though the grin threatening the corners of her mouth rather gave the whole thing away. “I would hate to think that you believe me not only cold and untouchable, but a prude.”

“Oh, cold wasn’t what I thought you were.” He trailed a thumb along the wrist he still held, the light tough making her shiver. “Only an idiot would think you were.”

“Thompson?”

“Case in point.”

“Oh, very fair.” Honestly, his thumb nail was rather distracting and she felt her breath hitch ever so slightly. “It’s just...well, been a while, I suppose. You learn not to think about those things when you have a job to do.”

“How long is a while?” He was more horrible at nonchalance, though he was more curious than cautious.

“Years. Not since the war.”

“Ah.” He tactfully left it at that, and while his thumb never stopped it’s wandering, she could feel him pull away emotionally, just a bit. There would always be the shadow of “the others” between them, she supposed. After all, they’d both been engaged to other people at some point and had walked away from both. And then there was Captain America…

“You can always ask, you know.” She didn’t want him to feel the subject was taboo. “I’m not all that ashamed. There were precisely three men before; a boy I had liked while I was in school, named Neil, Fred who I was engaged to, and a handsome GI from Missouri named Bobby who was stationed at Camp Lehigh for a time before being sent to Italy.”

None of them was Steve Rogers, which she knew was telling and surprising to him, given the expression on his face.

“So, you and….Rogers...never…”

“No,” she replied simply, shaking her head against the tears that prickled in the corners of her eyes. “Never time for any of that.”

His thumb did stop then, fingers pressing lightly but firmly in comfort around her wrist as he pressed another kiss to her palm. “I’m sorry, Peg. I really am.”

She took a long moment, swallow the tears and sob that rose, rubbing her nose against the rough blanket. “Hardly the most romantic thing to discuss with you.”

“No, but I’m glad you did all the same. We all lost things in the war we can’t get back and there is no shame in it.” He patted the half-leg on the bench. “We wouldn’t be us otherwise.”

“Fair.” She sniffed loudly. “It’s just been...such a long time since I let anyone in, you know. It didn’t feel safe to do so. People have a tendency to simply die around me.”

She had said the same thing to Jarvis after Ana had been shot.

“I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.” Daniel’s dark eyes met hers, earnest and sincere. He slapped the top of his knee, below which his leg disappeared, a reminder of his own close call with death.

She wished it was as simple as that. “Does anyone plan on it?” Certainly, Michael hadn’t, nor Bucky, nor Steve, nor Colleen, nor anyone she had watched die over the years. “We can’t ever plan when or how we die. Perhaps, it simply felt easier to be alone than to watch someone else die because of me.”

A heartbroken expression crossed his handsome face as he tugged lightly on her wrist. “Come over here.”

She wanted to resist, stubborn in her misery, but she did as she was bid, crawling out of her nest of blankets to settle on his lap, her full weight on his good leg as he wrapped her up, cuddling her close, his arms warm and strong around her. She sighed into the warmth, realizing, not for the first time, how much she had missed physical contact, that need of humans to touch and be touched and know they weren’t alone.

“I know what you’re going through.” The dark, heavy words pulled deep from inside of him, sad and understanding. “I felt that way in the hospital. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to keep on going without a leg, let alone without my unit. I came home, crippled, after years of fighting and death. I didn’t think anyone would want me. Hell, I didn’t want anyone to want me. Seriously, just...it was a bit much, I think. It’s easier to just be alone because losing things - people, things, legs - that hurts. Hurts less when you are alone.”

He brushed a kiss along her forehead. “But I don’t think any of those people would want you alone, Peggy. Rogers I know wouldn’t. I don’t know what the future holds for us, or if this will even work, but for now, we got this little oasis, you and me, and maybe we can make something of it, and you don’t have to be alone in the desert anymore.”

As he spoke, silent tears spilled as she listened. She instead soaked in the feeling of his embrace, of the warm body against hers, the quiet murmur of his words, his breath on her hair. For so long she’d denied herself these things, out of fear, out of worry, out of a sense that she shouldn’t have them or couldn’t have them and still be strong. She wasn’t terribly sure why she thought it would be wiser alone, but at the moment she felt like an idiot for even trying. Here was comfort and peace, perhaps the first she had known since the war. 

They sat there like that for long moments, as the sun finally crept over the cliff to shine fully over the ocean, now bright and full as it crashed along the beach. She sighed in contentment, watching the waters sweep across the sand, washing away all that remained.

“You know,” Daniel murmured against her hair. “We really don’t have to do anything today and really could just spend it in bed.”

She snorted, pulling away to look at him. “I’m sensing that this is really all you want to do with yourself.”

“I mean, it’s been a dry spell for you, we need to work on it.”

She rolled her eyes but placed a peck of a kiss on his rough cheek all the same. “I think I can be convinced.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the most productive day in her life, but it was certainly one of the more enjoyable ones. Howard may have a point in all his nonsense after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know where Peggy and Daniel end up in my mind, whether they marry in the main MCU timeline or if they don't. Frankly, I'm a fan of the theory that Steve goes back to 1948 and creates a different, parallel timeline with him in it, living his life out, and in the main timeline Peggy's history is unaltered, but you know, it's all so crazy I go with a lot of theories. I'm just happy those two crazy kids end up together. That said, I liked Daniel a lot, perhaps not with Peggy forever, but I like the idea of our girl taking the initiative and moving forward in positive ways and taking charge of her life and not pining over a lost love. Steve would never have wanted that.
> 
> Also, happy birthday, Cap!


	10. More Than A Pretty Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy meets Colonel Phillips.

She had never met a man who looked so rough and old - or so intimidating.

She’d read up on Chester Phillips on the ship to New York. He had graduated from the American military academy at Westpoint, New York in the top of his class, with a degree in Engineering. He was from Texas, a place she had only ever heard of in American cowboy films, though he looked the thing furthest from. Perhaps his craggy face had sat a saddle and herded cows from one dry, dusty place to another and that’s why he had attained the rank of colonel in the United States Army, tough as she stood there in his office in the sweltering heat of a New Jersey summer she thought perhaps he had gotten to his rank by simply being the most frightening man she had ever spoken to. One baleful eye looked her up and down as she stood ramrod straight in her uniform, dubiousness writ all over his weathered expression. Whatever he saw, it was clear he wasn’t pleased with it as he returned to the file she had presented to his secretary when she had come in.

“Agent Margaret Carter, is it?” His voice was a rough drawl, like honey mixed with gravel, foreign to her London ears.

“Yes, sir.”

He continued to review her files as she stood, not even daring to shift her feet in her practical pumps. If he noticed her discomfort, he said nothing. He pulled lazily from a mug of coffee that smelled as if it had been brewed in an old rubber tire and flipped pages, occasionally nodding, occasionally quirking his thick eyebrows, but none of it made him look pleased in the least. 

When he was done, he eyed her again, this time with a bit more charity, before waving to a seat in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Carter.” 

He spoke with the casual air of a man in charge, personable enough to know it wasn’t an order, but firm enough to indicate he expected her to do it all the same. She slipped into the wooden chair as lightly as possible, straightening to regard him directly, if more than a bit nervously. He ignored her bravado as he pulled out a pencil and notepad, her file still laying in front of him.

“So I agreed to this entire lend/lease exchange of scientific ideas with the Brits because I thought it might get us something good out of the deal.” He continued to ignore her as he tested his writing implement, decided he disliked it and reached for another. “I got conned into it because I was promised my own scientific and development unit, something I’ve been bucking for since the last war we were in. Don’t suppose you remember that one?”

“No, sir, not directly. I was born after.” She was sure he knew that, having just looked at her file. “My father served, though, he was on the front in France.”

“Did he?” He finally seemed satisfied with whatever he needed in a pencil. “Officer?”

“Yes. He was at the Battle of the Somme.”

“Yeah, that was nasty business. Before I got over there, but I studied it. First time they got tanks and planes involved. The tanks they used, innovative, but still too experimental.”

“Quite, sir.” She didn’t know what to say to that. She knew little of the actual battle outside of the fact that her father never discussed it and that he’d been seriously injured in it, enough that he had been sent home for the remainder of the war. Most of his comrades in arms had died in that battle. She and Michael had learned never to bring it up.

“As you know, in that war America didn’t get involved until the end. When we did, we weren’t even properly fitted out for it. People were afraid if we ramped up for war, it would look like we were going to do it. Didn’t matter, we ended up in the mess anyway and weren’t even ready to get over there for nearly another year. Meanwhile there were men like your father serving in the chaos and dying every day.”

She did know these facts, but was polite enough not to snap back at him over them. “I do believe that part of the entire discussion Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill have been having is to prevent that sort of situation.”

“It is, but it hasn’t come without its fair share of careful dancing around the subject. Lots of people over here still don’t want to get into another European war, Agent Carter. They don’t want to be drug into Hitler’s fight, but frankly, we all know it’s coming and I don’t want to be stuck flat footed when that war comes without even a plan as to how to mobilize our men and supplies. So, when the War Department approaches to me and says we want to create a research unit to help our friends across the sea, I read between the lines. I know what they are up to, I know what side we are on, and I know it’s coming sooner or later. All I ask for in return is that the other side of this deal send me competent people, a sharing of ideas. I was expecting them to send, oh, I don’t know, a scientist, engineer, someone who has been working in weapons development for the British Army. What I got was you. Why?”

Frankly, Peggy was more shocked he took that long to get to the point. Most other commanding officers would have blurted it out the minute they saw that she was a woman. “The SOE felt I would be more useful to you than an engineer or a scientist. You Americans have plenty of those already, far more than we have handy at the moment.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t lead off with impertinence, but she couldn’t help herself. It was irritating enough to be brought all the way across the Atlantic only to be looked at by this man as if she was a problem rather than a potential tool. She had hoped that military command in America would at least be a smidge more open-minded than the old-guard, Oxbridge set who tended to run the ranks of the British military were.

For long moments, Phillips regarded her with a face so stony she would have thought it was granite, at least till she noticed the appreciative glint in his dark eyes. Nary a muscle twitched in his expression as he lifted his chin, looking down his nose through his glasses at her. “Your file says you worked at Bletchley Park as a code breaker.”

“I did work there, yes, though I don’t have the clearance to discuss what I did there with you.”

He nodded, faintly, in what she hoped was approval. “And you left there to join the Special Operations Executive. Why?”

That was getting decidedly more complicated. She could elide over the truth, tell him simply that she wanted to serve her country, but Peggy had the feeling Phillips would simply see through that and call her out on it, not the way she wanted to start their working relationship. If she were to be working closely with this Phillips, she needed to be honest with him, to prove herself worthy of his respect.

“I left Bletchely Park because I was going to be married.”

His gaze flickered to her file, briefly, as he considered. “What were you, nineteen? Bit young to be settling down.”

That sentiment surprised her. “You know how expectations are, Colonel Phillips. Besides, our mothers were friends, the young man was nice enough and stable enough that my parents approved.”

Phillips absorbed that for a long moment. “I hear a lot of ‘enough’ in there, Carter, but not a lot of sentimental hogwash about true love and broken hearts.”

Well then, he was a perceptive man after all. “I didn’t precisely feel a lot of sentimental hogwash, sir. He was a good man and a kind one and I’m sure he met and married some other young lady of our class and breeding and will be very happy with her. I had other things I was called to do.”

“Such as fight in a war?”

He uttered that with the dubiousness many men had when they looked at her. “Perhaps, on this side of the Atlantic where it is relatively safe, one can pick and choose who they want fighting their battles. You can sit in the comfort of knowing that the womenfolk are safe and comfortable on the homefront while the men do what is dangerous going off to war. But I’m London born, Colonel Phillips. I grew up near Hampstead. I see what the Germans are doing to my home, and it’s not just men they are killing, it’s women and children too. Sitting around and knitting while we wait for the boys to come home isn’t exactly an option.”

Again, her answer seemed to please him, though he hardly cracked a smile. “You have some rather strong opinions, don’t you, Carter?”

“You didn’t get a scientist, Colonel Phillips, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get someone without a brain in their head.”

“Right.” He tossed his pencil on his notepad, clearly done with games. “So, you joined the SOE and they send you here to me. Why? Like you said, you have brains, clearly, and you know how to use them. Why did they send you in particular?”

Now he was truly curious and not just dismissive. She could lay the truth out for him. “Have you heard of HYDRA?”

That had his attention. “Nazi scientific research division, headed up by Johann Schmidt, a brilliant physicist but a crackpot otherwise. Got in good with Himmler and got on Hitler’s radar. That got him the ability to research his pet projects for the Third Reich.”

He wasn’t totally unaware, which was good. “Schmidt, like Himmler, is invested in Teutonic belief and mysticism, except he believes that there is truth to the old stories, that the gods left things behind for those capable of using them.”

“Such as?”

“Various magical items over the centuries, religious objects, some of it is legend, most is myth, but there are a few key items he believes are real enough. He’s looking for one item in particular at the moment.”

Out of her briefcase she pulled out her purloined notebook, taken on a recent mission, her first as a matter of fact. “This belonged to a German anthropologist and archaeologist. HYDRA has been funding his research into legends in Norway, ones regarding an ancient artifact that legend says once belonged to Odin.”

He held up his hand for the notebook. “How did you get your hands on it?”

She smiled stiffly. “The SOE wanted to see what he knew.”

Phillips raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment further. “Let’s take a look.”

“It’s written in German, sir.” She passed it over as requested.

“Good thing I read it, now isn’t it, Carter.” He pushed his glasses up his nose as he flipped it open, leafing through the pages of hand-drawn pictures and random runes, stopping on the box that was the object of Peggy’s explanation. “Is this what he’s talking about?”

“He called it the ‘tesseract’ for obvious reasons. He believes that it is an object not of this world and that it contains great power. The story is that only a person of tremendous strength is worthy enough to wield it.”

Phillips’ glared at her over the top of his heavy glasses. “And you believe him?”

“Whether or not I believe him doesn’t matter. What does is that Schmidt thinks it’s true and he’s focused on finding it.”

“Well, he can look up and down the Norwegian fjords all he wants, doesn’t mean that he’s going to find bupkis. Now why in the world is the SOE sending me this pile of manure for?”

Phillips was an engineer, a practical man who liked to fix practical problems. He didn’t believe in fairy tales, but he did believe in people doing rash things for said stories. “Schmidt claims only a superior man can handle this tesseract as mere mortals can’t. He has been looking for a means to create the sort of man to be able to wield it.”

“Ahh, Nietzsche’s chestnut, the _ubermensch_. He does realize that’s all allegorical, right?”

“I don’t think he’s thinking in that direction, no.”

Phillips’ closed the journal, tossing it across the desk. “So he thinks he can find a means of making someone a ‘superman’ so he can use a shining box out there somewhere?”

“That’s just it, Colonel, the SOE believes he found a way of making someone a superman.”

That got Phillips’ attention. “Believes? How?”

“A biochemist by the name of Abraham Erskine. He was doing some groundbreaking work in regards to the improvement of stamina and strengthening of the body, particularly the sickly. He’s been working on a formula to improve cellular fibers through synthetic proteins, increasing a person's muscle mass, potential strength, improving their stamina, even in theory sharpening their accuity. It was meant strictly for medical use, but word got out of what it did and Schmidt paid him a visit.”

“What sort of results had Erskine had with it?”

“No one knows, he had yet to publish his latest findings, but his last published article and presentation had promising results. After Schmidt’s visit, Erskine and his family attempted to emigrate to Switzerland, but were captured before they got there. That was years ago. Most assumed they were dead, but one of our operatives in Austria found out that Erskine is alive and that he may have finally perfected a version of the serum.”

“And what does the SOE suspect will happen with a perfected form of this serum?”

Here, Peggy was less sure. “We don’t know the full ramifications of what the serum does. His published works were speculative but not definitive. If the serum lives up to its potential, he could create a human being who reaches the absolute peak of physical perfection. No one, not even the healthiest, strongest, most fit person in the world can say that about themselves.”

She could see the idea of what that could mean processing in Phillips’ quick mind, the deep lines in his face sinking as he realized he didn’t like whatever mental calculus he did with the information he gave her. “And I can assume that if the Nazis get their hands on a formula like this they could give it to their troops?”

“If he perfects it and if he can mass produce it, but frankly, even just one such person could be dangerous.”

“One person could theoretically wield this tesseract, if it exists.” Troubled, he took off his heavy frames, scrubbing at his face, rubbing his eyes as the full weight of it dropped. “Do we know anyone who might have a clue into Erskine’s work and just how successful he was in doing it?”

“Actually, I do, and he works right here with you all in the SSR.”

That caused the older man to blink in mild confusion. “Who?”

“Your new weapons contractor, Howard Stark.”

That surprised him for only a moment, before he mulled it over, shaking his head. “Do you know anything about Howard Stark, Agent Carter?”

“Only what I’ve heard, that he’s a genius, that he is young and ambitious, that he started his own company when little more than a teenager and managed to snag one of the most lucrative contracts out there because no other manufacturer was willing to deal with the US government on a ‘for credit’ basis.”

“Stark had a helluva lot less to lose than the rest of them did, especially coming out of an economic depression. That said, he’s also crazier than a bag of cats and willing to do just about anything because he likes the sound of it. What does he have to do with Erskine?”

“We aren’t sure, but we do know they were communicating early on in his work. He was interested in some of Stark’s experiments with Vita Rays and the possibility that might work in helping those who had shown slow growth build up their body mass along with the serum.”

For a long moment, Phillips sat, his arms crossed and shoulders hunched as he considered, before picking up the receiver on his phone. “Yeah, get Howard Stark in my office as soon as possible, and I don’t care whose bed you have to rouse him out of.”

He hung up as Peggy hid her mild surprise, but clearly not fast enough for Phillips not to notice. “Stark is rather fond of spending time in the company of a variety of women...variety being the operative word. I tell you that, Carter, not to shock your sensibilities, but to warn you if you are going to be working here. You’re a lovely woman, no sense beating around the bush on that, and he’ll zero in on it.”

He paused long enough to eye her up and down once more, assessing her as he would one of his soldiers. “You look as if you could hold him off well enough.”

“Why do you think I got my brother to teach me how to fight?”

Just a ghost of a smile lit his craggy face. “Good job. I’ll be honest, I’m not a man who likes women in my unit. Not that I don’t think women aren’t capable, if you met my wife and daughters, you’d know who really ran the roost, but you aren’t the problem. Men are and that’s who I have more of, and they will do stupid things to try and get the attention of a pretty girl because they are idiots. Then there are those women who will let them do it because they think it’s funny.”

“I’m not here to start a romance, Colonel. I’m here to serve my country. I wouldn’t have gone through all the work to become an SOE agent if I intended to just marry the first American GI I saw.”

“Didn’t say you would. You’re more than a pretty face, Carter, I’ll give you that. You seem smart and gutsy and we need that. I’ll go along with this SOE operative agreement, but don’t you dare cross me Carter or you won’t like it.”

“No, sir.” She murmured, not doubting for a moment that she wouldn’t.

“Good. Camp Lehigh isn’t much, but the Army’s giving it to us to use for now and so you’ll have to make do. We have a basic barracks for the women working on base and that’s all we can give you.”

“That will do, sir.”

“For now I want you in on all our officers’ meetings. My assistant will get you a list of dates and times. I want to know what you know and how you know it and I want to use that SOE trained brain of yours to tell me how we can start circumventing this HYDRA now before we actually do get sucked into this war. I’d rather go in knowing what insanity I’m facing first and not have to guess at it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He sighed heavily, blinking before waving a lazy hand at her. “Go on, get out of here. Dismissed. Go see the billeting officer for everything you will need.”

“Of course, sir.” She rose, gathering her things as she made her way to the frosted glass office door.

“Oh and Carter!”

She turned briefly to glance back at him, her hand on the metal knob.

“This is the US Army. It’s made of men, ones who have ideas of what a woman can and can’t do, who think you’re here for fetching coffee and doing their paperwork. That’s not what you’re here for. I got a secretary for that, she went to school for it and everything. Any of my officers give you that sort of hell, you come and inform me. Don’t go handling that on your own, else I’ll have some general breathing down my neck about foreign operatives and Army officers.”

That seemed fair. “And if it isn’t an officer?”

He shrugged lazily. “Anyone enlisted who is stupid enough to be an idiot around you, you have my permission to put him in his place, Agent.”

“Good.” She smiled brightly at that prospect. “Thank you, Colonel Phillips.”

“Don’t be thanking me. I still think this is all insane.” He glowered but shooed her off, a final dismissal as she made her way out the door.


	11. Paper Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy is faced with things no being what they seem

She stared down the muzzle of dark steel, knowing that if she said anything, did anything untoward, she’d be dead in seconds. Her eyes flickered over the top of it to Thompson, who watched her with hard eyes, blonde hair in a disheveled wreck, expression taught with distrust. His weapon didn’t waiver, despite the pleading look she gave him.

“Jack, it’s me. You know who it is.”

“Yeah, I thought that the guy who shot Espinoza was Sousa too, till he wasn’t.” Across his cheekbone was the dark ring of black and green bruising from a heavy object that had been slammed across his face. “If you’re Carter, tell me how I got my medal?”

She knew, of course, and she was one of the only people who did know, but it was the sort of secret she had vowed to keep. “Thompson, are you sure?”

The gun jammed into her face further, his voice a furious whisper. “Just tell me, damn it, else I swear I’ll not blink putting a bullet between your eyes.”

She swallowed, nodding slowly. “You got it in the Pacific. You told everyone you got it taking on enemies alone, but they’d declared surrender and you killed them.”

For a long, slow breath he continued to stare her down before shame mingled with relief on his face, his gun lowering slowly. He slumped into the chair of the abandoned garage, letting both his weapon and his head hang as Peggy finally rushed to check out the nasty injury on his head.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, though she wasn’t as sure he was. One eye was slightly more blown than the other and she feared a mild concussion. “You should have seen what I did to the other guy.”

“What happened?” It was supposed to be a simple mission. They’d received reports of Leviathan agents in Peoria, a simple covert op to observe and gather information. Two agents got sent on it, the more experienced Myerson and the rookie, Espinoza. Myerson had been found in a ditch three days into the surveillance, Espinoza had turned up, delirious and hysterical before being taken into custody, where he’d promptly been shot by someone Thompson claimed had been Daniel Sousa. Now, here they were, unsure of what was going on and who to trust.

“I was sitting in the holding cells, chatting with Espinoza, then the person I thought was Sousa wandered in and said he’d take over the situation. I told him I was the Chief, so back off, but then he knocked me across the room. I pulled myself together enough to engage, but when I fired…” He trailed off, eyes wide.

“He turned into something green and monstrous, like something out of a B picture?”

“Yeah,” he gasped, flinching away from her probing fingers. He’d live, but he’d need to see a doctor to get checked over.

“I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who saw them,” she breathed, crumpling to the dirt and oil covered floor beside him. “Have you heard from Sousa at all?”

“Not since he went out to check up on the surveillance scene. He’s not responding to his radio.”

Damn it,” she whispered scrubbing at her face. They sat silently in the dusty, rusting car garage, filled with old tools and oiled cloths, staring at the filth covered windows, each lost in thought. Peggy, for her part, wondered what to do next. 

“What are they?” Thompson shook his head in almost childish horror, unable to wrap his mind around what was happening. Honestly, Peggy wasn’t any better. She’d seen all manner of mad things in the years since she joined the SSR, but green-skinned beings who took on the face of others, that she couldn’t believe.

She laughed, mirthlessly, remembering well the stories told around long ago camp fires in the dark forests of central Europe. “Sounds like one of those fantastic tales that Barnes and Morita were fond of. Something straight out of those silly comic books that they were always passing back and forth.”

Thompson's dry chuckle echoed her own. “I read a few of those myself. Always tended to be the patriotic kind, though, the hero going in and killing all the Japs or Krauts or whatever evil-doer of the week they threw in there.”

Somehow that didn’t surprise her about him. She could guess he had at least read one of the comic books pumped out out there to the troops and he wouldn’t be the only one. She wasn’t a fan herself, she found them all silly at best, vulgar at worst. There was one she recalled Bucky being fond of, with shape changing aliens who infiltrated into the highest echelons of government, a metaphor for the war and foreign spies, or so he claimed.

“What if it isn’t as silly as a comic book,” she dared to wonder aloud, throwing it out there to him. Predictably, he snorted in derision.

“Come on, Carter, we both know your not that pudding brained.”

“No, but we also both know there are stranger things in this world than neither one of us can explain. If we both saw shape-changing, green skinned aliens, we can’t both be crazy, can we?”

Whether he liked hearing that or not, he had to give her some credit. “All right, so there are green-men from space.”

“Why would they be here then?”

“I don’t know...invading?”

“But why? It’s not like we’ve ever seen them before. Certainly, we’d have noticed if a superior race of beings from beyond our universe showed up with technology far outstripping ours.” She chose not to mention Schmidt’s more choice theories on the Tesseract and its origin place. She’d have to take this in baby steps with Thompson.

He at least gave it enough of a thought to play ball. “Okay, so they are sneaking in. Maybe it’s a recon team for a later mission. They’re intelligence gathering.”

“Maybe, but why?”

“Who knows? Maybe they like good-old American apple pie?”

Peggy wished Thompson had more of an imagination. “What is it that Myerson and Espinoza found in that supposed Leviathan shed?”

“Don’t know. It was an object, silver, round, nothing we could make sense of. Was going to get Stark on it when we got back to New York.”

She considered, wondering what would be important enough to kill two men over. “What if what they took was important, but they didn’t know it. They thought they had found another Leviathan weapon, but it wasn’t, or worse, Leviathan had the object, thinking it was something they could use and they’ve come back to claim it.”

Thompson had that thousand-yard stare, the wheels in his mind spinning. “The one who looked like Sousa, he asked if he’d cracked it yet, something about blossoming and revenge. What if it’s their weapon and somehow it ended up here. We’ve got something we don’t understand and it's just floating around here on our planet?”

“I suppose we will have to get it off, then, won’t we.” Peggy stood, brushing off her slacks, knowing the oil stains were never going to come out. She reached a hand for Thompson. “Up, then! I believe we have have a trail to track.”

“Of green-skinned aliens who aren’t who they appear to be?”

“No one said it would be easy, else there would be no adventure in it.”

Thompson only looked at her as if she suggested he change his own skin. “Christ, you are crazy!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I like the idea of someone in the 1940's, circa Rosewell, running into Skulls. I am a huge X-files fan (which if you are as well, a quiet plug to go check out my X-files stories).


	12. Pride Is Not The Word I'm Looking For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it is Steve's 26th birthday.

They had just finalized plans for the latest mission, carefully drawn up in Peggy’s precise hand, when Barnes sidled up to Rogers. His expression was neutral, but his glittering, pale blue eyes were sheer mischief as he reached into his jacket pocket, producing a slim package wrapped in white paper to toss in front of the other man.

“Happy birthday, punk!” The insult was filled with affection, even if the cuff on the shoulder was perhaps a bit harder than strictly necessary. Rogers, for his part, stared at it as if it were a live snake that his best friend had tossed on the map in front of him.

“Well, go on! You think I would forget your birthday? How could I when you had to go and be born on the 4th of July?”

Rogers reached out a hand for it, glancing sideways at Barnes. “Bucky, you didn’t have to…”

“I didn’t, completely, Ma helped. Sent those from that art supply place back home you always were haunting.”

Something flickered over Rogers’ face before a grin spread and he snatched up the package, tearing through paper like it was tissue. The box inside opened to a set of pencils, the sort Peggy had seen the more artistic types use. She guessed they were specialized for the task far more than the graphite she’d seen Rogers scribbling with on various occasions over the years.

“I always wanted this set.”

“Well, Ma and Pop chipped in, so did Alice and Becky, and maybe I sent a little pay in there as well.” Barnes let a pleased smile light his face, a rare sight in the months since his rescue from Austria at the hands of his best friend. “It’s not Ma’s apple pie with a candle on top, but it’s still a little something from home to remember them by. Ma and the girls send their love.”

“I’ll write them tonight, tell them thanks.” Rogers fingered the pencils briefly before clapping Barnes on the shoulder. It was the closest they would get to an embrace with her standing right there, she guessed. Men and their emotions, she snorted, gathering her notes.

“Tell her you are safe and are eating enough, because she never believes me.” Barnes’ complaints belied the true affection he held for his friend since childhood. “Anyway, see you at the mess, and then tonight we are all going out for drinks and a celebration, Captain.”

“Not sure how far that will get us, Sergeant, but sure.” He waved off Barnes, who sauntered away, calling to Private Lorraine as he did to have her join them. Peggy had no doubt Lorraine would be pleased by the idea, especially if it was Barnes doing the asking.

She eyed Rogers as he gathered his own things, lingering over the gift. In truth, she had forgotten it was his birthday and she felt badly for it. Of all the vital statistics she remembered from Project: Rebirth regarding Steve Rogers, that hadn’t precisely stuck in her head. She instead busied herself with her notes, ordering them tidely for retyping by Lorraine as she tried to figure out a tactful way of wishing him a happy birthday without it seeming like an afterthought.

Rogers seemed to have other ideas. “Would you like to join us this evening, Agent Carter?”

She paused, surprised, as she cut eyes up at him, briefly. “Oh...I...sure, I suppose.”

“I mean, I just didn’t want you to feel we were excluding you.”

“I didn’t assume you were.” She was trying to sound assuring but came out somewhat defensive. “I mean, I didn’t feel excluded. You’re their captain, it’s important to keep up morale in your unit.”

“Sure,” Rogers replied, the tips of his ears going suspiciously pink. He hadn’t lost that trait from when he was the scrawny man who had wandered into Camp Lehigh the year before. “Anyway, I’d like it if you joined us. You are as much a part of the unit as any of them.”

“Thank you.” She ignored the pleased glow his words brought out in her as she gathered her things to take to her desk. “I have to admit, I had not remembered it was your birthday.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t advertising it, either.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “When your birthday is on a holiday, it tends to get overlooked anyway. My birthday is on Independence Day in America, so everyone was off for the day celebrating. Sort of made it all a bit less special, like kids who are born around Christmas.”

Peggy supposed she could see that. “Being British, I have the distinct advantage of not seeing July 4th as being anything other than a regular day. Therefore, I see it as something special.”

That brought him up short, causing not just his ears, but now his cheeks to blossom pink. Peggy tried not to feel smug as he fumbled with his cap and paperwork, clearly at a loss as to what to say to that. She decided to take pity and rescue him.

“Since it was a national holiday, how did you celebrate your birthday?”

Rogers’ death grip on his cap loosened as he seemed to regain his footing somewhat. “The usual I suppose. When my mother had the day off, we’d do something together, maybe a park or the museum, if it was open.” 

She could see a thumb brush over the box that Barnes had presented him with and imagined a day at an art museum would be a dream for a boy with an artist’s eye.

“More often than not she had to work, so I’d spend the day with Bucky’s family. A few times Bucky and I got down to Coney Island to run around, do some rides, or we’d get down to Rockway with the girls and mess around. But we’d always be back for dinner, sharp, else Bucky’s ma would not let us hear the end of it. She’d always make some special dinner and we’d watch fireworks from the roof of the building after.”

Peggy couldn’t help but smile. It sounded somewhat idyllic for a child who grew up in the tenements of Brooklyn. “Not so bad for a boy who had to share his birthday with the nation.”

“Yeah, well, Bucky did convince his sister, Agnes, that the fireworks were being shot off for my birthday. She believed that for years and hasn’t forgiven him for it.”

“Ahh, older brothers.” Michael hadn’t been much different. She recalled him trying to convince her one year that they couldn’t celebrate her birthday as it fell around Easter and that exempted him from buying her a present.

“I suppose. Bucky’s the closest I got to one of those and he never gave me as much grief as he did Alice, Becky and Aggie.”

She recalled from his file he was an only child, his father having died in the Great War and his mother remaining a widow until her rather untimely death when Rogers was only just 18. She supposed the Barnes family was the closest he ever had to an actual one, which went a long way to explain his heroics in Austria. Had Michael been the one captured and held in a HYDRA camp, she would have likely done the same, though perhaps not with the sort of spectacular results of Rogers.

“It must have been lonely then, growing up alone.”

Rogers shrugged, leaning against her desk as she put files away in locked drawers, safe from prying eyes. “I wouldn’t know different. I admit, when I was a kid and was getting picked on, other kids used to tease me about it. It wasn’t like I was the only kid who lost a parent in the war, but you know how they are, they see the weakest and find any excuse to make them feel small.”

“I don’t know, I find it rather cruel.” Peggy replied, quietly, seeing the hurt that hadn’t quite gone away even after all the years.

“It’s in the past.” He brushed it off with the stubbornness he seemed to bring to everything.

“Still, it’s not a shame, losing someone in the war. I lost uncles in the fighting on both sides. My father was wounded. It still bothers him from time-to-time, when it’s cold. Most of England had someone they lost in the war.” Many of the girls she went to school with, in fact, had lost a father to the war, if not several other male family members. It hardly seemed the stuff to tease a child about.

“No, it’s not, but bullies often don’t care about truth or reason.”

“You sound so philosophical,” she teased, hoping to lighten the mood somewhat.

“You kind of have to be, else none of it ever makes sense.”

“Very fair. That said, do you miss him, your father?”

“I guess.” His casual air underscored a private hurt she guessed he didn’t like to dwell on so much. “I wouldn’t know any different, to be honest. He died before I was born, before he even knew I was a possibility.”

The idea struck Peggy as so very sad. She hadn’t known Steve Rogers long at all, only a year, but she had known almost from the first what a special man he was. Dr. Erskine had seen it too, and she imagined that had Rogers’ father lived to see his son, he’d have been as proud of him as she was sure his mother was.

“Well, I’ll say that your father, wherever he is, is damn lucky he had you for a son. I know that we are damn lucky we found you.”

“I don’t know, I think I’m the lucky one. If I hadn’t stumbled into Erskine that day, I’d not be here.”

Self-effacing as always. “We’ll discuss it later this evening over drinks and celebration, then?”

He sketched a brief salute as he recognized a dismissal when he saw one. “I look forward to it, Agent Carter.”

He wandered away, no doubt off to find Barnes and the other Commandos, as Peggy watched him go. She would have never guessed the man who wandered into Camp Lehigh last summer would ever be the hero they needed. She owned she felt a certain amount of pride in that, seeing the fragile man grow into the leader of men, confident, certain, and still just the same man underneath it all she had gotten to know. Yes, pride was certainly a word for it.

“Happy birthday, Steve,” she murmured, to no one in particular, as she left her notes on Lorraine’s desk and contemplated what to wear out for drinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a story sitting in my pile of Bucky trying to remember himself and his family, because so many stories focus on Steve but not the rest of the Barnes clan. So I fleshed it out, stopped, and there it sits. Out of this story and a series of other one shot sketches of Steve and Bucky's childhood came the three sisters Alice, Rebecca and Agnes. Classically, of course, Rebecca was his sister, but for whatever reason I had a clear image of the other two and so there they are. Someday I'll have to post those shorts because they are fun.


	13. Sting Like A Bee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Bucky have a heart-to-heart.

She’d hedged around James Barnes for a month, dancing around him as he did her, a careful and polite minuet that they both willingly partnered in. Not that they had ever spoken about it, outside of the one conversation they had in the pub their first night back in London and the various moments they would come across each others path in HQ, they never had a real conversation between the two of them. But she knew he was watching her, sizing her up, quietly assessing her as she was him. She had heard little-to-nothing about him before Rogers decided to go on a suicide mission to Austria alone and rescue him and the other captured soldiers. He’d mentioned they’d grown up together as boys and that Barnes was his best friend from childhood. Peggy had gathered quickly that Rogers had grown up fairly lonely, isolated both by his own frailty and by being a fatherless boy whose mother had to support them alone. She’d picked up that the Barnes family were very much Rogers' family, making Barnes the next-best thing to an older brother. Certainly, judging from the way Rogers spoke of him, Barnes was that, always looking out for him and pulling him out of various run-ins with bullies.

Beyond the personal, she knew that he was assigned to the 107th, that he was well-respected enough to attain the enlisted rank of sergeant. Obviously, he was good at overseeing and organizing his group of men if he were given that position. She checked his service records and he seemed a model soldier, if a bit too protective of others, one who had walked in the door with little combat training and had excelled quickly, picking up martial arts easily enough. He seemed by all accounts to be the very type of soldier that they would have wanted for Project: Rebirth. Instead, they got his best friend. Thus far, he had said nothing on that, at least not in her hearing.

She finally took the bull by the horns, however, on a random day as she wandered past the recreation rooms for the enlisted men. It was a makeshift sort of construction, put together by the Americans to give them something to do. Clearly, the British forms of sport and entertainment didn’t quite meet their expectations. She had been somewhat surprised when they had built a crude baseball pitch outside, but after offering comment on it and earning rather dirty looks from both Colonel Philips and Howard Stark - the later one shocking her if for nothing else because she hadn’t expected Stark to like any sport - she had kept all future opinions on the American entertainments to herself. Up went a basketball hoop, a contraption she’d heard of and not seen, and a few other odds and ends. The one thing she did recognize from the offing was the boxing ring. The men would wander in there at all hours of the day, usually attempting to best one another in feets of strength. If they weren’t there, they’d have a go at the heavy and light bags rigged up next to it, the steady thump of fists meeting leather a counterpoint to the other activities in the area, relaxing in their rhythm.

She often would see Rogers’ crew of men here, bonding she supposed, but Barnes was the one in here the most. It was why she wandered inside to look for him, trying not to inhale too deeply the stale scent of sweat and leather mixed in a space that lacked enough proper ventilation. He was indeed at the long, heavy bag, by himself, dressed down in his uniform trouser and undershirt, sweat soaking through the later as he jabbed and pounded the leather in front of him. She watched for long moments, noting that he didn’t simply stand planted and swing haplessly at the bag of sand before him, rather, he danced and moved, dodged opponents only he seemed to see, his shoulder dipping here, his booted feet stepping there, as if it were all a choreographed routine of pugilistic grace. Even his hands were precise in where they landed, held up in front of his face as if for protection before slipping out, lightning quick, stinging the leather with hard, quick slaps before returning to their guard, soon to be followed by a bob out of the way of his imaginary foe’s way. It was all rather lovely if she thought about it, flowing, and she guessed that Barnes probably was a rather good dancer. He had brought it up in their first conversation together, for all that she had shot him down. She imagined it was a skill he used to his advantage with the ladies.

He finally paused in his practice, shaking his now drenched hair as he let his stance relax, halting the swaying bag before it got away from him. He caught her standing by the ring, lazily leaning up against one of the posts. If he happened to be surprised, he didn’t show it, only nodding politely as he began taking off his gloves, undoing the laces of the first one with his teeth before wiggling it out and working fully on the second.

“Agent Carter,” he called, not looking up from his task. “You don’t usually frequent these parts.”

That was true. Few of the women frequented this abode of manly pursuit, except when they wanted to flirt shamelessly with whoever was in here. Peggy had avoided it mostly because she was busy and had better things to do then to make eyes at men showing off. Still, she shrugged as she waited politely for Barnes to grab a towel from off a nearby bench and run it across his soaking hair and swig a swallow out of the canteen he’d set there.

“I was hoping to catch you.” She wasn’t going to beat around the bush, even if he was busying himself with removing athletic tape from his fingers. “I figure if you are going to be part of Captain Rogers’ team and I’m the main intelligence liaison for you all, I might as well get to know you better.”

Barnes wasn’t an idiot and knew she was dancing around the truth. He barely glanced up, but she could see one dark eyebrow quirk as he continued to pull off sticky strips. “Not like I’ve been hiding, ma’am.”

“No, but our paths have yet to cross. I suspected the reasons were mutual.” She might as well cut to the chase. “You’ve avoided me since you met me.”

He lifted one broad shoulder lazily. “When I first met you, I had just walked three days through the forest after being freed from a hell hole where I was worked like a slave till I physically couldn’t anymore, before they tied me down and pumped me full of drugs enough that I couldn’t think straight for weeks. Wonder I wasn’t dead of pneumonia. So if I didn’t make the best first impression, I apologize. Usually I am a bit more smooth than that.”

Perhaps he had been once, when he’d lived in Brooklyn with Rogers. War changed all of them, herself included, but she had seen enough of what the horrors of it did to strong fighting men. Barnes was no exception. She imagined that before he’d left home he hadn’t been that different than Rogers, perhaps more cocky and self-assured than him, perhaps a bit more well-reasoned. He still tried to keep up that facade now, ragged as it was, barely covering the jagged, harder edges underneath. He wasn’t the first soldier she saw that happen to, she doubted he’d be the last.

“Let’s let bygones be bygones, then?” She pushed off the post to wander to the other end of the bench where he sat. “I’ll forgive you for being annoyed I turned you down cold and you will forgive me for doing so. Done and done.”

He didn’t stop his task, but he did snort in wry amusement. “You think I was upset you wouldn’t even bat an eye in my direction?”

No, but it was a shot in the dark to suss out why he really was so stand-offish. “I can’t imagine many women have ever said no to you.”

“More than you would think, but not as many as should have.” He wadded the tape up into a ball, tossing it on the ground as he rubbed the sticky gum off his skin. “Though, I will say I do have some impressive dance moves, if you ever want a whirl around the floor. Just as friends, of course.”

“I’ll consider it when we win this thing,” she smiled, realizing he was at least offering an olive branch. “As you can imagine, you are one of a long line of homesick soldiers who like to offer a dance to me.”

“Yeah, but none of them are named Steve Rogers, are they?”

He hit with a marksman’s precision and Peggy felt herself flush guiltily as she picked at fuzz on her cotton skirt, suddenly aware that Barnes was playing his own game and not sure that she liked it. “I’ve known Rogers since Camp Lehigh and Project: Rebirth. We are colleagues, if you will, and I’ve come to respect him a great deal.”

“Respect?” He chuffed as he leaned his forearms on his knees, turning to stare her full on. “Lady, if you had any more respect for him, I’d have had to douse the pair of you out where you stood!”

The suggestion immediately had her seeing red, and perhaps that was the point, as Barnes immediately held up palms in surrender, backing away several inches, grinning. “That’s two I got in there, Carter, and I’m beginning to think I’m pretty on the mark with what I see going on.”

“And what do you see, Sergeant?” She didn’t know if she liked the smugness in his tone or the implications, but he surprised her by shaking his head in reassurance.

“Nothing, you two are so painfully proper it's killing me. You are made for each other. I almost want to lock you in a room to get it over with so I can move on with my life and know that for once Steve had something good happen for him.”

That hadn’t been what she had expected to hear.

“Sergeant Barnes, if you are implying…”

“Save it, Carter, I know it’s all above board.” He lazily dipped to grab his gloves, knotting the laces together. “I’ve known Steve too long and too well to believe otherwise.”

“And I hope you are assured that I mean him no ill will.”

“Well, you certainly want more for him than most of the dames around here...begging your pardon.” He didn’t look in the least sorry for being vulgar and she found she wasn’t offended. He wasn’t wrong.

“You’re very protective of him.”

Her observation only earned another shrug. “I don’t know why I need to be, he’s now taller than I am and can lift motorcycles over his head.”

“Some habits are hard to break.”

“Sure,” he murmured, letting the gloves dangle between his fingers, his expression wistful for the briefest of moments. “You know how I met him? My pop owns a grocery in our neighborhood. Nothing fancy, but ours. Anyway, I was out making a delivery to the Pittores two streets over and I hear that sound any kid in Brooklyn would recognise, the sort of smacking sound of fist on face that usually sent the lot of us scattering. I knew that I’d seen Cuddy Neal and Barney Kavanaugh hanging out there and knew they had someone pinned. I get in the alley and there is Cuddy, all of twelve and six-foot-forever beating up what looked like a six-year-old for money. And here’s this kid being pounded and telling him to piss off. Well, I couldn’t just let the little guy get creamed, so I took him out. Cuddy was taller than me, but I was fast and knew how to use my speed and size to my advantage. Barney was too stunned to help. The pair of them ran off, and there was Steve, laying on the ground, a bloody mess. So, I peel him off the pavement and ask him what they wanted. He said it was the dollar in quarters he had in his pocket, the one he’d spend months pulling together hauling groceries up stairs for some old lady, just so he could have pocket money. Mind you, he’s the smallest kid I’ve ever seen, but he drug up groceries three floors for months, like hell he was going to give that up to a jerk like Cuddy.”

Somehow, none of this story shocked Peggy about Steve Rogers. “Did he get to keep his money?”

Barnes rolled his eyes. “Yeah and I took him home to Ma to patch him up. She and Pop practically adopted him after that and he sort of just became the fifth Barnes child. He’d sleep over when his mom had to work overnight shifts on the ward, and he’d stay with us when he got sick, which was all the time. I was happy, I had three sisters and they were all pains in the neck, so Steve evened the numbers a bit.”

“Sounds idyllic.” She couldn’t help but smile and think of Michael with the slightest of pangs, remembering her own childhood with him.

“When he wasn’t sick it was.” Barnes wince and frown spoke to many such moments, and judging from what little she knew of his medical history, she could guess Rogers had never been strong in his childhood. “He nearly died on us a couple of times. He didn’t, though. He was a fighter, refused to ever back down from anything; bullies, rheumatic fever, jerks abusing others. He always wanted to take them on, always thought he could. I saw him once jump tackle a guy for kicking a puppy. Every time he’d nearly get clobbered, but he’d do it anyway. I took up boxing to protect him more than anything. Pop said if I was going to have to keep finishing all of Steve’s fights for him, I might as well learn it proper, so he found this Jewish guy with a gym near the house and I started working there three times a week to pay for lessons.”

That explained Barnes’ skills at the bag, then. “You’ve always had his back?”

“Since we were nine and ten-years-old, yeah. Punks the closest I’ll have to a kid brother and he needs all the looking after he can get.”

“Except now he can look after himself just fine.” She hadn’t meant it as quite the challenge it came out as, but there it was, the giant elephant in the room between them.

As expected, Barnes looked grim. “Yeah and what did he have to go through to get like that, anyway?”

“He volunteered for Project: Rebirth, a program sponsored by the SSR to make super soldiers using a formula created by Abraham Erskine.” It was the patented, canned response they had thrown at Congress and the media and it fell out of habit from Peggy’s mouth. Barnes was less impressed.

“Right, so he signed up to be a lab rat in the hopes he could get over here to fight in this shit show.”

“You can hardly be surprised, considering what you just told me. Do you think he was happy being left behind to stay home while you went off to war without him?”

“He should have stayed there.”

“Well he didn’t and you can’t change that. He is his own man and will do whatever he wants, no matter what any good sense tells him.”

She hadn’t meant for that hint of exasperation to leak out, but there it was. Barnes smiled faintly as she tried to school herself into cool detachment once more, knowing he saw through her. “Doesn’t it just annoy the hell out of you? It annoys me and I’ve known him sixteen years.”

“My point being is that you want to protect him and he’s capable of protecting himself.”

“Is that so?” He laughed outright at her pronouncement, as if it were the most hysterical thing he had heard. “How he didn’t get killed in Schmidt’s warehouse, I don’t even know. I was delirious for most of it. He walked in, no back up, no plan, nothing except him, a gun and a stupid stage shield.”

“And managed to get you and hundreds of men out.”

“He didn’t know what he was doing. He never does. He throws himself headlong into everything, not stopping to think if he should. He’s always assumed that he’ll come out the other side ‘cause thus far he always has. I don’t know if he’s blessed or cursed at this point, but one of these days, it won’t be the lucky day, and then…”

He trailed off, glaring at the space between them on the crude bench they both sat on, as if Steve were actually there.

“He’s a soldier, Barnes. It’s what he signed up for.”

“I know that,” he snapped, petulant. “I signed up too and I was just as stupid. Just...his ma died when he was eighteen, barely out of high school. I promised her I’d watch out for him, and it’s been him and me ever since. Till the end of the line, I said. I told him that the day they buried her, and I meant it. I’m not going to let him get killed on my watch.”

“Good!” Her interjection rang loudly in the space. “He’ll need someone to watch his six, as it were. Heaven knows, he won’t check there himself.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Then can you stop being angry with me that I turned your best friend into Captain America? I had a job to do and I did it and did it well.”

“So I see.”

Peggy narrowed her eyes at him. Barnes was unrepentant.

“Look, Carter, you had an assignment, I get it. Just...Steve isn’t a lab rat or a weapon, he’s a man, a good man, whose heart is too big for his own good half the time, especially because he didn’t get any common sense along with that physique.”

“I know he’s a good man, it’s why Erskine chose him. He believed in Rogers, that he’d be the right sort of man to give this gift to, because he would use it for good and not try to bully or dominate others with it. If you believed in him half as much as Erskine did, you’d know what a gift he was given and how seriously he takes it. He’s not an idiot, he’s a man who has spent his entire life told no, that he was too fragile, too small, too weak to take a stand and to step aside so someone bigger and stronger could fight for him. He can fight for himself, he always could. Perhaps you should have the same faith in him that Erskine did...that I do.”

For long moments Barnes stared at her and she couldn’t tell if he was insulted she suggested he didn’t believe in his friend or stunned that she so utterly had faith in him. Perhaps it was both at the same time. He finally broke it by running a hand through his still sweaty, dark hair, gaping at her for long moments before he spoke.

“I’ve always believed in Steve Rogers, Agent Carter. I’m one of the few people in the world outside his ma that ever did. I’ll go on believing in him till one of us reaches the end. But, it’s nice to know it’s not just me believing in him, either.”

That finally melted the ice between them, thawing it into less wary understanding between two people who clearly cared for the same person very much. Peggy sighed, relieved as she relaxed for the first time in his presence. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad he has you, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he shot back, lazily. “I prefer it with my friends.”

“I didn’t know I was one of those.”

“Well, I have a feeling we may want to get on those terms real quick if we are working together around Steve.” He rose, offering a hand to her to help her up. She was perfect capable, of course, but she recognized the courtly gesture as a peace offering on his part. “Besides, I’d rather be your friend than your enemy, Carter. I heard how you kicked Gilmore Hodges’ ass in basic.”

For that she would never be ashamed. “He crossed a line. I merely put him back in his place.”

She didn’t know if Barnes was impressed or not, but he certainly seemed amused. “I see why he likes you.”

If he was trying to embarrass her, he succeeded. She could feel her cheeks glowing against her volition, though she refused to meet his impudence, choosing to stare ahead. “I am fond of him as well.”

“So I noticed.” She imagined his sharp, pale blue gaze was cutting to her teasingly, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “You know, girls never paid Steve much mind before. I think I hooked him up with every girl in Brooklyn and most in Queens. None gave him the time of day, least not till he had to go and turn himself into a lab rat.”

She didn’t like his implications. “I gave him the time of day before then, Sergeant, I will have you know.”

“Did you?” He was delighted by that news, only embarrassing Peggy further, which was always a dangerous prospect. She spun, stopping the taller man in his tracks, blazing at the look of surprise there.

“He was nothing but a gentleman, Sergeant, and no matter what I felt honored to have worked with him. I don’t know what other women saw in him, but I’ve gotten to know him. If you are implying I’m some bit of skirt chasing him around because he’s now Captain America, then you got another…”

He shoved his left hand in her face, a placation as much as a shield. “All right, all right, gees, Carter! You proved your point.”

It clicked with her what he had done again! “You baited me.”

He looked mildly pleased with himself.

“You baited me. Why?”

“To see what you would say.” He was unapologetic as he grinned. “And you passed.”

She was less than amused. “Was that a test?”

“Of a sort. Like I said, women never spoke to Steve before, now they are all mooney around him, but he only has eyes for one of you.”

She found her mouth getting rather dry. “I see.”

He lowered his hand, fine lines tightening in his expression. “Do you? You’re right, Steve’s good, the best. He’s been through a hell of a lot already in his life. Last thing I want is him heartbroken by some dizzy dame who saw Adonis and nothing else, who didn’t know the scrawny kid who caught a chill whenever the wind blew off the East River. He deserves someone good in his life. You seem good, Carter. Pardon my language, but don’t fuck it up.”

She had a feeling there was an implied threat somewhere in there but his words were sincere enough. “I will do my level best. You just bring him home in one piece.”

“I can make no promises, Carter, but I’ll try.” She knew he would, just as she knew that he couldn’t make any promises where Steve Rogers was concerned.

This seemed to be where the music stopped on their minuet. 

“Then, can we agree to part this meeting of the minds as friends, Sergeant Barnes?”

“I always liked you, Carter, just didn’t trust you.”

“And now?” She couldn’t help but be curious.

He paused for long moments, his smirk somewhat thoughtful. “I see why he likes you,” he reiterated, before sketching a salute and wandering off. Peggy watched him go as he did, thinking she could see why Rogers would go to hell and back for Barnes as well.


	14. Sunrise, Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy mourns her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At stated before, I once had an idea for Michael to have a very young family. I've decided to scuttle that, but they still exist in these one offs. As this was the first one I wrote, there it is.

The darkness outside meant it was far too early to for her eyes to even be open. Peggy whimpered loudly in complaint.

“Shhh, not so loud. You want to wake Mum?”

“Ge’off,” she grumbled, pushing her solid brother with as much force as she could, being four-years-younger and considerably smaller. Michael only snorted as she pulled a pillow over her face.

“I told you you wouldn’t be able to get up this early. Couldn’t hack it!”

“Can too,” she replied automatically, despite the pillow over her face.

“Prove me wrong and meet me in the garden in five minutes.”

She hated him, she decided, as he crept out of her room. It was his stupid idea to even do this, waking up before the sun rose so they could watch it creeping up over the horizon. He’d said he’d done it loads of times and Peggy hadn’t seen it once, and after much taunting and a firm insistence she was’t a baby and could too watch it, they’d agreed to waking up early the next day. She wished he hadn’t provoked her. She could just roll over and go back to sleep, wait till breakfast, and suffer her brother’s unceasing torment on her being a baby, but that thought galled her, burning in her stomach as she realized he would be right and she couldn’t have that. Throwing off the pillow and her blankets, she grumbled as she found her slippers and robe, taking considerable less care making her way downstairs than she was sure Michael did.

She found him out in the garden already, a spare blanket on the dewy grass as he lay there, grinning up at her grumpy face. “I knew you’d give in eventually.”

“Budge over,” she flopped gracelessly on the blanket, the sky still only a dark gray and no sun in sight. “Where does it come up anyway?”

“Over there.” He pointed a pale hand in the distance, over the hedges towards the east.

“Why is it so special anyway?”

“Because, it’s like magic, watching everything going from darkness to light, from gray to color.”

As if he somehow magically summoned it, just over the hedges, the sky began to slowly, ever so slowly, lighten into a pearly color.

“And if you listen close, you can hear the birds start to wake up and chirp at each other.”

Peggy did listen and thought she could hear, off in the distance, the sound of some sort of birds in a tree singing, silvery and high, calling to the others to wake up.

“And everything is so still and quiet this time of day. No one is up yet, no cars, no radio. Not even Mrs. Jenkins is in yet, banging in the kitchen.”

“That is rather nice,” Peggy admitted, scooting closer to her brother than she would have usually. It was rather chilly in the morning with everything so damp, and he was warm. It was self-preservation.

“Keep watching, Peg, just over there.” His finger traced the line of gold that started to peek up over the hedges as far off the sky turned from pearl to golden white, the entire arc above them lightening from dark gray to blue overhead. Slowly, ever so slowly, the circle of light rose, like a disk of molten metal, crawling up from below the hedges as the world came to life in brilliant colors.

“See,” Michael whispered to her, that know-it-all look on his face. “Magic!”

Peggy owned, rather quietly, that it was. Michael always had found magic in the world, often when Peggy herself couldn’t see it.

The last of the guests had left their house, the polite respects having been paid to Michael’s young widow, Sarah, and to their parents. Her mother had already gone upstairs to lie down as her father saw out their guests and she and Sarah gathered the clutter of dishes to take into the kitchen where Mrs. Jenkins carefully washed and packed china between the tears she pretended that no one could see.

Peggy watched her sister-in-law as she dutifully loaded a tray with saucers and cups, her mind clearly not on the fine bone china she gently piled on it. “Sarah, darling, I have these. Go upstairs and rest. It’s been a long day.”

“I can help clean. Heaven knows, it’s been a long day for all of us.” She smiled, a small, wan thing in a face too pale with grief. “Don’t pretend you are fine, Peggy, I know you aren’t.”

“I don’t know if any of us will be.” Peggy reached to squeeze her hand in sympathy. No, she wasn’t all right, not at all. Her last conversation with Michael had been a row, quarreling over her engagement to Fred. She didn’t even say goodbye to him that night before he left, after he departed the party to return to base. He was gone before she could even say she was sorry. Now, she never could.

“Go see to Young Michael. I’ll finish this up.” Peggy’s order was gentle, but meant to be followed all the same. Sara smiled in appreciation as she left the dishes to Peggy who watched her sister-in-law as she mounted the stairs.

Mrs. Jenkins quietly scrubbed at the sink as Peggy brought in the last load, eyeing the tray. “That it, then?”

“That’s it. The Millers are in the front still chatting with Dad.” They had been the last to leave, clinging to the good food and sad tidings like vultures. Every neighborhood had that couple, she supposed, and her father managed them with all the skills and diplomacy years of law had given him.

“Old freeloaders, them, no respect for the loss.” Mrs. Jenkins sniffed, wiping soapy hands on her apron as she reached for Peggy’s tray. “Your family’s been hurt enough, don’t need no one trying to take what little hospitality we got.”

“It’s little enough, that’s for certain.” For all that the war meant there were few to no luxuries, like butter or sugar. Their family friends put something together to celebrate the life of a beloved son. She crumbled the leftover crust of a mock apple tart on a plate between her fingers, admitting quietly it wasn’t the same, nothing would ever be the same.

Mrs. Jenkins’ mothering broke through her haze. “I’ve got these, Peggy, if you want to go take a lie down.”

“When have you ever known me to want one of those.” She smiled sadly at the family cook, shaking her head. “No, think I’ll go wander the garden for a bit.”

“Don’t be out too late, it’ll be dark and we will have to black it all out.”

“Right,” she called, wandering into the coolness of the summer evening. If she pretended for a moment, maybe closed her eyes, she could make believe it was a summer of her childhood, the air cooling from the days warmth, the smell of honeysuckle and roses in the air, the only worry in the world being whether her mother would fuss over the grass stain on her dress or the rent from climbing some tree. Back then, things were so easy, so simple...so magic.

Like a half-remembered dream, Peggy opened her eyes towards the golden, setting sun, slipping down past the trees, tucking itself below the horizon and melting into purples and blues, twilight creeping up on the world. Everything felt faded and gray now, the summer evening, the grass, still warm from the day, rapidly cooling, the worn brick and the rustling trees. Even the bird song had ceased. Life seemed to ebb away, the joy of the world leached out into darkness. It was as if the world sensed her state of mind right then, for nothing could possibly be all right again without Michael in it. Could it?

“You know the best thing about sunrises,” Michael had asked her so long ago as they sat on their blanket, childish faces turned towards the sky. “They always come back again and again. Makes you kind of glad there is a tomorrow, doesn’t it?”

Peggy had only nodded sagely, but hadn’t understood. Perhaps, today, finally she did.

“There’s always a tomorrow, isn’t there?” She smiled achingly, wiping at the tears that fell unbidden as she wandered back inside. The sun would come back tomorrow, even without Michael there to meet it.


	15. The Birds and the Bees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy is forced to explain where babies come from.

“Aunt Piggy, where do babies come from?”

Had Young Michael asked here why Hitler was standing at the front door, Peggy didn’t think she could be more shocked by a question out of his mouth. She turned towards her nephew, all of five-years-old and clearly more precocious than she had ever imagined, staring up at her with curiosity in the same dark eyes he shared with his father. He was clearly serious about it, judging from the solemness of his expression. Young Michael was a sunny child and up to all manner of deviltry, usually, so for him to be asking meant the question clearly bothered him.

Peggy tried not to look across her mother’s sitting room to where Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes sat, afraid she might burst into shameful flames if she did. “Err...why do you ask, darling?”

Michael shrugged his little shoulders, sighing heavily as he wandered close enough for Peggy to scoop onto her lap for a cuddle. “Susan Jones down the street, her mummy is having a baby. I asked only ‘cause she’s getting terribly fat and Sarah said it is because she will have a baby brother or sister, and I asked Mummy if I could have a brother or sister and she started crying when I asked.”

Oh, poor Sarah! Peggy could only hug her little nephew tighter as she pressed a kiss to the top of his dark curls, sensing that Young Michael was trying to understand and couldn’t wrap his mind around why it would make his mother cry so. “Well, love, it’s a bit hard to explain, I must admit.”

“Mummy said I’d understand when I was older, but I want to understand now.” That was the same cry of every child from the dawn of time, Peggy surmised. She remembered her own frustration on that same score when she was only slightly older than Young Michael. She glanced up at her guests, who sat politely watching the tableaux, Steve in sad bemusement, Bucky thoughtfully as he regarded them both. As if sensing her dilemma, the latter graciously leaned forward, catching her nephew’s eye.

“So, I got three younger sisters.” He leaned down to Michael’s level, nodding gravely as the voice of wise experience. “Best way I figured it out is that when a daddy loves a mommy a lot, he gives her a special gift and that is what she uses to make a baby.”

Michael’s little face screwed up in thought as he considered. “So a mummy makes a baby?”

“That’s why she’s getting fat, she’s got a baby growing in there!”

Peggy resolved to never let James Barnes ever forget that statement, even as she was eternally grateful that he came up with some answer. She herself had been considering trying to explain sexual reproduction to a child in ways that wouldn’t horrify either his mother or hers. Still, Michael seemed to take this all in stride as he nodded, cocking his head sideways in thought.

“So a mummy grows a baby, like a plant?”

“Something like that.”

“But she needs a daddy to do that?”

Heart breaking, Peggy watched as his little mind sussed out the situation, his face falling as it occurred to him why his mother was so sad. “I don’t have a daddy.”

She could see the mild panic and aching empathy cross Bucky’s face a she glanced to Steve, who read his best friend’s mind as he jumped in to try and save the day.

“I didn’t have one of those, either!” He smiled, slipping from his chair to sit on the floor at Young Michael’s eye level.

“Really?” The boy’s dark eyes widened up at his hero, wandering over to his orbit as he discovered his beloved Captain America wasn’t that different from him.

“Nope! My father died in a war, just like yours.”

“Are you named after him, too?”

Steve shook his head. “No, his name was Joseph, but my mom said I looked a lot like him.”

“And your mummy didn’t have another baby?”

“No, she never did.”

“Didn’t you want a brother or sister?”

“Oh, sure! It was kind of lonely growing up all by myself. But, I did okay.” He glanced sideways to where Bucky sat, watching. “I found this lug over here and he became my big brother, even though he has different parents. I got his three younger sisters to boot.”

“Yeah, I needed the manpower against all the women in the house. They outnumbered me three to one!”

Michael looked between them both. “So I can pick someone to be a brother or sister?”

“Well, I’d ask them first,” Steve suggested, glancing in amusement over MIchael’s head to where Peggy sat, trying to smother a chuckle. “But, sure! Brothers and sisters don’t always have to have to come from the same mom and dad.”

“I’ll ask Susan if she will be mine and maybe we can share the baby.” Having solved his existential crises, he turned to Peggy pleased with this plan. “She said she’d marry me someday, maybe she can be my sister!”

That created a whole other avenue of explanation that Peggy didn’t think was necessary for a five-year-old. “Well, I think that sounds like a fine idea. How about you run along and tell your mother the grand scheme.”

“Okay!” His little legs, now long and straight and no longer the chubby, fat baby ones she recalled, carried him down her parents’ long, wood-floored hallway to his mother as he shouted for her attention. Peggy couldn’t help but laugh, turning burning cheeks to the pair on the floor.

“Without the two of you, I’d have been lost!” She flopped into the armchair, marveling at the question itself, let alone their quick thinking.

“Yeah, I seemed to remember having to have this same conversation with Becky when Ma was pregnant with Aggie.” Bucky turned to Steve who had the far off smile of half-remembered memory.

“Didn’t you tell her that your mother swallowed watermelon seeds and that’s why her tummy got so round.”

“And then Alice tattled on me. I never even saw Ma’s spoon come flying at me.”

“I swear it’s a miracle you didn’t die that day.”

“From your lips to God’s ear, my friend.” Bucky crossed himself reverently. “Anyhow, no worries, Peg. Kids are kids. You never can tell the things that come out of their mouths.

“Hey, wait!” Steve turned to her, frowning slightly. “Didn’t he call you ‘Aunt Piggy’?”

Bloody hell, she swore, covering her face at their snickers and wondering how in the world she was going to explain that precious nugget from her nephew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last Young Michael story, I'm afraid, so say goodbye. He is sweet, but alas, change of plans.


	16. The Falling Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy receives an unexpected visitor.

The leaf on her bedside table was important, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember why. It was like that now at days in the twilight of her years, her memory faltering for no reason. It was truly the cruelest of punishments for the likes of her, who had for so long had relied on her keen mind and ability to pull up esoteric information from everywhere to piece together puzzles. Now, she couldn’t remember the faces that floated in front of her half of the time or even where she was or why she was even there. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember why one dried out rose leaf was so very important to her, and yet there it was.

She’d snapped at the nursing assistant who had been dutifully cleaning that morning, dusting off the myriad of photos of herself and small children - her children, that’s right - and organizing the bits and baubles she had there. She’d swept the frail, dried thing up in the palm of her hand, prepared to crush it in her warm brown fingers and toss it away and Peggy had shouted at her. Thankfully, the woman had stopped, eyes wide in that placating way one had with the deranged and set it down on the table again, reassuring Peggy she’d not mess with it again. It had been important, but why that was still slipped past her.

There was a knock at her door, the slight rap all the nurses in this place had, a timid knock of knuckles that was half afraid, half demanding and usually annoying. Peggy flicked her eyes to see the friendly smile of one of the usual women on the ward. Her name was Susan, she knew that, and she was Filipina. Her family had emigrated for work and she was the first member of her family to get a degree. She was a hard working woman, kind hearted, very sassy, and reminded Peggy of herself, which was why she liked her so much.

“How are you this morning, Ms. Margaret?” She had taken to calling Peggy by her given name and Peggy had never had the heart to tell her she wasn’t fond of it. She supposed she rather liked it from Susan.

“All right, I suppose." Much as she was any morning in this place. In the corner, the television droned on the news, flashing a picture of Anthony up on the screen. He’d been up to something again and Peggy could only inwardly sigh and shake her head, wishing, not for the first time, that Howard were alive to talk sense into his son. Not that he’d had much sense of his own to impart, but she was concerned for the boy with this Iron Man business.

“That Tony Stark, up to something again!” Susan paused long enough to glance at Howard’s son, nearly the image of his father, shooting Peggy a knowing look. “He’s handsome.”

“Gets it from his father, among other less savory things,” she muttered as Susan slipped the high blood pressure cuff around her thin arm. “I once caught Howard sleeping his way through all the women on my floor in my apartments because he was bored.”

Susan laughed brightly as she inflated the cuff, the nylon expanding against Peggy’s now emaciated muscles. Susan always did love Peggy’s stories. “One day, you’ll have to write a book about your adventures.”

“If I could remember half of them,” she replied, watching the other woman work. “I did live a life, I can’t deny that.”

“I only wish I could claim to have a quarter of the adventures you’ve had. You’ve met presidents, prime ministers, royalty. I can’t believe you told off a king!”

“I didn’t tell off a king, I simply politely asked King T’Chaka of Wakanda if he planned to make unauthorized stops in other countries to please simply let us know first so I didn’t have to smooth out an international incident. He was ever so polite about it. They have so little contact outside of Africa I don’t think he knew the protocol.”

Susan only shook her head, her dark hair lightened with golden brown at the tips. “I’ve never spoken to a king let alone told him to behave himself.”

“They are men, like any other, and you need to stop comparing yourself to my exploits. You do good work.”

Susan grinned, placing her stethoscope against Peggy’s chest. “Breathe, please.” Peggy dutifully did as she was asked as the other woman listened, then noted her findings on the chart she carried with her. “You are sounding good this morning.”

“I do try.” As if she had anything to do with it, sitting here, staring away her days staring at inane television.

“Think you can be up for a visitor?”

That perked Peggy up considerably. “Sharon or one of the grandchildren?”

“Neither!” Back came the knowing look she had when Tony’s face had been on the television. “He’s your handsome stranger from the other day.”

“Handsome stranger?” She hadn’t had one of those come to say hello to her in more years than she could count, at least not since her SHIELD days. “I don’t believe I know anyone who fits that bill.”

Something faltered in her faithful nurse’s expression for just a moment. “He came by last week. Don’t you remember?”

“No,” she replied, drawing out the word as she tried to pull up anything in her memory of it. Something about the leaf sitting by her bedside, and lovely flowers, fat pink roses, like her mother once grew in her garden, and her being his best girl. Why couldn’t she remember?

“Well, I’m sure you will remember when he comes in. There is no way I would forget that man, that’s for sure, and he’s rather taken with you!” Susan bustled around as she fluffed up Peggy’s pillow and straightened her still thick, shining silver hair.

“An old woman like me? Such an imagination you have.” Peggy played along, even if her brain scrambled to remember who she was talking about.

“I don’t think he sees an old woman, just the woman who stole his heart.” Susan was sentimental, there was no doubt about it, and Peggy was left clueless at her soft, wistful expression. “It’s sweet that after all these years, you are still the love of his life.”

Peggy could only nod, frantically hiding the fact she had no idea what her nurse was even talking about. “What silliness!”

“I don’t think it’s silly,” Susan mused. “I only wish that I had someone look at me the way he looks at you.”

“Well, I suppose we should get on with it, then. Don’t want to keep my suitor waiting.”

Susan gay laugh did little to soothe her nerves. “I’ll go get him. He’s been here since we opened waiting for visiting hours.”

Peggy only nodded as she wandered out, her mind whirling as she tried to pull whatever it was from the fog of her recent memory. She’d had some visitor, yes, someone who brought those flowers, someone she’d wanted to see a long time, someone she loved. It wasn’t Daniel, he was gone, dead now nearly twenty-five years. Who, then?

The tap at her door came again, this time firmer, less hesitant. She didn’t bother to turn towards it as she bid them enter, and it was only that spicy scent of soap and leather and him that made her turn in confusion to the stranger who now filled the doorway. It was a sight that nearly made her fragile heart stop.

He was still every bit as big as she remembered him coming out of Howard’s machine, though his expression was still that of the gangly man who didn’t quite know how to talk to a woman. His uniform was long gone now, the red, white, and blue replaced by the relaxed wear of modern people, jeans and a t-shirt with a leather bomber jacket of the sort he’d favored long ago. In his hands he held a bouquet of flowers, an assortment of spring blossoms, a riot that again reminded her of her mother’s handiwork long ago.

“Steve?” She couldn’t believe it was him, fearing she was hallucinating it all, even as sauntered over to the side of her bed to place the vase filled with flowers where she could see it. 

The lopsided grin he shot her was the same Steve, the one he gave her in the cab in Brooklyn. “How is my best girl today?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “It’s been so long! I looked for you!”

Hurt and confusion flickered ever so briefly across those clear, blue eyes, but only for the barest moment as a sad, watery smile pulled at his lips. “I know, Peggy. Took them seventy years, but they found me.”

Seventy years. She had lived her entire lifetime then, in the SSR, founding SHIELD, her marriage and her children, her grandchildren, now even their children. She had lived an entire, single lifetime without him, and there he stood, still looking the same as when she last saw him when kissing him in the back of Schmidt’s car as it raced after the Valkyrie, Philips at the wheel.

“You’re late,” she whispered, her eyes glazing as she stared up at him, her voice cracking and breaking despite herself. She could see his own expression crumple as he nodded, settling in a chair beside her bed.

“I...uh...couldn’t call my ride.” He sniffed, loudly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he fought, like she did, to keep his composure.

_A week next Saturday at the Stork Club, eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late._

“I waited for you,” she sighed, reaching for the closest part of him she could get to, his knee as he crossed one ankle over the other leg. Her fingers brushed across the thick, rough denim. “By the radio for a while, then for months after the war. Even when I went back to America to the SSR, I waited for you. I hoped you’d come back, that Howard would find you, that we would bring you home. I tried, for a long time.”

“I know,” he whispered, his head bowed as traitorous tears dripped from the edge of his nose, spattering his shirt. “I never wanted you to be alone, waiting for me.”

“I wasn’t always. I did move on with my life.” She glanced at the photographs on her table. “I had a family, eventually. Perhaps, one day, you’ll get to meet them.”

He spared a long glance at the pictures of her as a mother, long ago. “I’d like that.”

“They’d love you. They’ve all heard about you. I fear that you were a topic of bedtime conversation quite a bit.”

That finally brought something of a smile to his face. “I imagine I was.”

How little he had changed in those seventy years, she mused, as sunlight filtered through his dark blonde hair, still in its regulation comb over. She may be old enough now to be his grandmother, but her heart still skipped a beat as she watched him. The familiar flutter of admiration and attraction felt just as sharp as it had been years ago when she’d been a young woman believing she would have all the time in the world to love her soldier.

“It’s highly unfair,” she finally uttered in the silence that hung between then. “That you have not aged a day, sitting there looking perfect, and I’m here, withered and old and faded and far too much of a crone for the likes of you.”

She meant it as something of a joke, but it had hurt deep down saying it. How must she look to the likes of him now? He had known her when she was vibrant. Now, she could barely remember her own children’s names. In his sense of actual time, she had been a young woman just yesterday. In her broken, mental sense of time, she seemed to only recall him from the moment he had flown into the water and not the previous visit Susan spoke of. Between his serum and her memory they were both losing time.

If she had expected him to look at her with pity and sadness, she clearly had forgotten Steve Rogers. He immediately sat up, grabbing her fragile hand in his large, warm one, just as soft as she remembered. His blue eyes now blazed with the same sort of righteousness he used to display before throwing himself into a fight.

“You are beautiful and lovely to me, Peggy Carter. You always were and always will be, and I’m better for having known you.” His gaze softened as he reached his other hand to play with the now silver strands that lay across her shoulder. “And so what that you have some gray in your hair or a few more lines? They are just part of who you are...of the woman I love.”

Always with his heart on his sleeve, that one. She sighed, sniffing as she squeeze his hand gently. “You were always one for the dramatic, weren’t you?”

“Well, perhaps the poorly timed ones.” He sighed with self-deprecation. “If I had been smart, I’d have told you years ago.”

“But would it have made a difference, really? You’re still you, Captain America, off to throw yourself into every fight and the first to throw yourself on the grenade. There’s not a lot of room for much else outside of that.”

“No, I suppose there isn’t.” There was something infinitely sad about his agreement and it hurt him that she said it. Perhaps she shouldn’t have, but she was now at an age where it seemed pointless to lie.

“Did you ever stop?” He eyed her with a look that full well said he knew she didn’t, at least not by choice.

“I had to eventually, obviously, but perhaps it is better to say I shifted focus. Once, I was so consumed with proving that I was capable that I couldn’t be bothered with not taking the lead. Then, once I had it, I learned that it came with a cost. So, I changed, I suppose, focused on different things, made them important.”

“And you don’t think I could?”

She couldn’t help but smile at the forlorn note in his voice. Whatever else he was now, he was still just the scrawny man from Brooklyn who looked her in the eye all those years ago, determined to be a soldier. “I think you could, if you wished, if you wanted to change. Who do you want to be?”

So many things played across his face, a myriad of emotions that broke; grief, loss, confusion, despair. Her poor darling, with his life turned upside down, waking up to this strange new world and all the people in it. All he knew and loved he lost under the ice so many years ago, and soon, whether she wanted it or not, she would be gone as well and he would be alone, just as she was.

“You’ll move on, you know. We all do, whether we want to or not.”

“What if I don’t want to?” That stubborn tilt to his jaw made her laugh.

“I don’t think you get a choice in it all, darling. You’ll have to, and you can, we all did. You won’t forget us or what we went through, but you’ll make a new life with new people in it. It can be a good life, a happy and fulfilling one.”

“But it won’t be one with you in it.”

“No,” she conceded softly. “It won’t be and I’m sorry for that.”

“No more than I am.” He replied, looking old in that moment, as old as she was now.

They sat in silence, hands intertwined as she simply took comfort in him there, alive and warm beside her. Eventually, as time dwindle away, Susan returned, her beaming smile lighting the room as she caught them both. “I’m sorry, Captain Rogers, but it will be Peggy’s lunch soon.”

“Of course.” Up went the USO charm and politeness she recalled so well as he pulled his hand from hers. Peggy immediately felt the fog and darkness threaten at it, at the loss of him going away.

“Will you be back?” Was she really that tremulous old woman, worrying that he wouldn’t return.

A pained smile flickered as he caressed the top of her hair. “I will, Peggy, of course. I’m here for good now, whenever you need me.”

Without preamble, he leaned down, pressing his warm lips to her cheek as she leaned into it and remembered cold evenings in Europe, and drunken nights in London, and one shared kiss as they raced through a mountain towards Steve’s destiny. Her heart broke as he pulled away, smiling down at her for a moment before thanking Susan and promising to return next week.

Peggy watched his tall form round the corner with an aching heart. She hoped she would remember this visit this time, remember him when next he came by. She settled against her pillows quietly as Susan began to fuss around her.

“He’s so sweet and handsome! I can’t believe you had a romance with Captain America back in the day!”

“I don’t know if it’s still a romance that remains precisely ‘back in the day.’” She smiled softly, looking to the flowers he left on the table beside her, reaching out to pluck off one loose leaf from the bunch and rub it between her fingers, as if imprinting him and his return on the delicate remains of what she still had of her memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My own father passed from early-onset Alzheimers at a relatively young age, and it is interesting how it sometimes plays out. He could remember some things better than others, and sometimes his memory would come back to him after a few minutes of talking with you. Peggy has a stronger mind than most, so I've played hers up more with the idea that things come and go and while some memories are razor sharp, others, like Steve's return, are not. It is a heartbreaking disease, both for those who suffer from it and for their loved ones, and I seriously wouldn't wish it on anyone.
> 
> I am game with either theory of Steve's return in the timeline, but own a partiality to the idea that his actions create a new timeline, thus Peggy's past in the original doesn't change. This story runs with Daniel as the mysterious husband, though again, I'm not sold on it either. I am only sure that Steve and Peggy end up together someday and that's all I wanted.


	17. The Halls of Vallhalla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy bonds with Thor over brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have hiding away in my drive a story I started a while ago about Peggy going to the future. Very cliche, and yet, one day I will finish it because Peggy in the modern day just feels too right. Also, reference to my alt Michael family which will likely change.

When she and Michael were children, Peggy recalled a small, colorful book given to them from a distant uncle who taught at Oxford. It had been a book of Norse myths, and in its bright pages had been the stories of Odin All-Father and his family of other deities who were worshipped everywhere across Northern Europe, from England to Russia. While they lacked the romance of the Greek deities, who Peggy admitted she appreciated more, the Norse gods did seem to be more adventuresome, with their constant wars against monsters and other sorts of fiends. She remembered well sitting with Michael as he read to her about Thor and his mighty hammer crushing his enemies, lightning flashing and thunder roaring, and all knew the might of his fury. She had never in her childhood expected him to be a tall, handsome, boisterous man who would be charmingly clueless to native customs or have an utter fascination with the game of baseball. While the former perhaps shouldn’t have surprised her given his status as both an alien not of this world, the latter bemused her if nothing else because of all the things he could relate to in this world, an American stickball sport had to be it.

“So the man who is in between the 2nd plate and the 3rd plate is called what again?”

“Shortstop,” Steve replied, mostly distracted by the game. “They cover the space in between because most batters are righties.”

That Thor got instinctively and she could almost see him committing that to memory, perhaps calculating that into whatever battle strategy he had with his massive hammer. “It would seem then that left-handed hitters would be preferable in this game.”

“Sure, but lefties are hard to find. Most people are right handed and even of those who are lefties not everyone wants to play baseball or is good enough to make it to the major leagues.”

“Are there not those who can do both?”

“Switch hitters? Sure, those are even more rare.”

Peggy decided it was best to busy herself with far more interesting matters to her. She had stacks of intelligence to sift through on HYDRA for their latest search, not to mention reports to write, and the annoyance of emails, a thoroughly modern torture that came straight from Dante’s _Divine Comedy_. But, instead, she found herself out on the balcony terrace of the ridiculously overpriced apartment that SHIELD had put her up in when she first appeared in this strange time and which Tony had bought out because “Howard wouldn’t want you to be homeless”. She had to admit it had rather grown on her, and as she puttered around the plants she had in pots scattered about she settled to light reading and ignoring the responsibilities she had that day in favor of the spring sunshine.

She was somewhat surprised when, an hour later, the tall Asgardian wandered out into her sanctuary. Since his arrival back on Earth to hunt for the scepter used by his brother, he’d spent much of his time with the astrophysicist, Jane Foster, but of late had taken to frequenting visiting the other Avengers on a social level. Perhaps he was lonely on this world, so far away from his family and friends. As a transplant both to America and this time, she understood that feeling intimately. Perhaps that is why Thor got on so well with Steve, the two men understood not only the responsibilities of leadership and being warriors, they knew what it was like to feel out of your own element.

“It is a lovely day, Lady Margaret!” He boomed, wearing his broad, beaming smile that was was as bright as the sun above, one that made more than a few of his female fans swoon. She only cringed slightly at his name for her, an unfortunate byproduct of Thor’s own cultural misunderstandings and Tony's sense of humor.

“That it is.” She slipped a bookmark into her paperback, watching the other man wander to the glass and steel railing on the edge, leaning against it as he partook of the view of New York. He’d taken to wearing far more casual clothes than his fine and unusual armor he wore from his home, and Peggy had to wonder if Dr. Foster were the one responsible for his far more sensible jeans and t-shirts or if he’d taken to copying Steve’s usual, off duty look.

There were many strange things in Peggy’s life, she had to admit, the first and foremost being that she was sitting on a balcony in 2015 with a royal prince from another planet who happened to be known as a deity on this one. Like all the Avengers over the years, she’d gotten to know then all as the individuals rather than the team, recognizing the unique roles they played. It could be rather difficult with so many alphas in the bunch, but they had managed something of a cohesive group out of them all. Steve and Tony she knew best of all, of course, had made firm friendships with the elusive Natasha and Clint, and had a warm understanding with the quiet and troubled Bruce. Of all of them, however, Thor was the one she least knew and understood. 

She had never quite put her finger onto why. Perhaps, it was because she had not been the one on point when he first appeared on Earth, as she had been on Stark babysitting duty, a job she was uniquely suited for, admittedly. It could be her own inbred, very British sense of class and rank, as a part of her did absolutely cringe just a bit at the idea of her rubbing shoulders with royalty, something that seemed to amuse Tony to no end. Steve liked to tease her that she was simply overwhelmed by Thor’s good looks, just as his stream of fangirls through the social media pages were. It was conversation that usually led to her proving to him just which blonde-haired soldier held a place in her heart - and perhaps that was the point of the comment in the first place.

Whatever it was, it struck her as strange, as Thor was perhaps one of the most affable of all of them, certainly with his fans, who were many, even if they weren’t at Stark levels. But as Tony was quick to point out, being friendly wasn’t the same as being close, and she had a feeling that the alien on this different planet and strange world had a hard time being close to anyone. Perhaps it was the price paid for his royal rank and station. Who on his world was ever close to a prince? Still, she decided to give it a go, setting the book down on the wicker chair and coming to stand beside him. New York was spread out in all its glory, clear to New Jersey across the way, the Hudson River cutting a silvery-blue swath between them. In the other direction, the city gridded its way to the East River and beyond, the Atlantic Ocean and the home she had left so very long ago. Perhaps that was a good place to start.

“You know, I never expected to land in New York City of all places.” She leaned against the railing as he did, though she had to reach considerably higher to do it. “I ended up here by accident.”

“I had wondered. Your accent is different than everyone here. Steve said you were from Britain.”

“I am.” Even still she got the occasional store clerk who heard her accent and sighed and tittered that it was so cute. She had grown accustomed to the tiresomeness of it all. “Born and bred in London.”

“Ahh, that is where Jane is at the moment. I got to visit it last year...obviously.” His pained expression spoke volumes. The strange events around the Convergence and the clean up that ensued had occupied a great deal of her own direction at a time when she was also trying to help clean up the mess of the fall of the agency she’d help to found. She often forgot that Thor had been in the middle of all that.

“I don’t believe I ever thanked you for saving my home. My family and I used to visit the Royal Naval College when I was a girl. I had an ancestor who was some famous admiral or the other and father used to love to shows us where the Carters first made something of themselves.”

“Well, I’m glad I could do your birthplace the honor, Lady Margaret. No thanks is necessary.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “You are from a line of warriors, then?”

“More or less,” she replied, thinking that it was perhaps the closest analogy she could get to something he would understand. “I had ancestors who fought in wars going back centuries, but the Carters first started getting a name for themselves under the Duke of Marlborough fighting in all of his wars.” 

She had always thought it was funny that her earliest ancestors had served for a Churchill, just as she had. “In any case, one of my ancestors made enough money through war that he could settle the family comfortably, hoping to keep the lot out of war for good. We clearly didn’t get the message. My grandfather served in India before settling back in England, my father served in the first World War, as they call it, and then Michael and I….” She trailed there, surprised at the aching pain she felt even now, seventy years after her brother’s death.

“My brother and I both served,” she finished softly, focused on the shine of the sun on the river and not on looking at the man beside her, blinking hard against the tears. “Michael was my elder by four years, goaded me into doing everything. He saw...knew I was something more than just a pretty thing to grace a drawing room and sip tea. He pushed me into the SOE, a special division, hoping I’d find my footing there. I was going to get married, but Michael knew the man wasn’t fit, and he called me out on it. I was so angry at him, mostly because I knew he was right. I refused to speak to him before he left. I thought I’d get a chance to make up with him before the wedding, but a few days before we got the message he’d been killed. Instead of getting married, I called the engagement off and joined the SOE, like he wanted.”

She hadn’t thought about that moment in so long. She still remembered the thrill and fear that morning as she packed her bags and left the beautiful diamond ring Fred had given her on the dresser, walking away without a backwards glance. She had never regretted that decision, despite all the trials and tribulations she’d faced since then.

“Anyway, the SOE led me to their American counterparts in the SSR. They were doing research on secret weapons manufacturing, including a serum that would potentially turn a man into the ultimate of human soldiers, someone at the peak of his capabilities. That’s how I met a young man from Brooklyn, New York and somehow, mysteriously, would lead me here in the 21st century, decades from my own time and place.”

She turned to hazard a glance through the windows to Steve who still sat entranced by the ballgame on the television, her face softening even as she did it. “Not that I regret a thing in the world about it. I suppose if Michael hadn’t have called my bluff that long ago night, ruining my engagement party, I’d not be here with Steve, looking over the entire city of New York, having this conversation with a handsome alien prince who happens to also be the god of thunder I grew up hearing about.”

Her last statement made Thor laugh, a rumble of a chuckle, like distant thunder on a summer's day. “It sounds as if your brother was a man of good heart.”

“That he was.” She thought of him and the legacy he left behind, despite dying so young. “He left a son, however, named for him. He moved to America and had a family. They all live down near the nation’s capital, Washington DC. Young Michael’s granddaughter is Sharon, the woman who comes by to see us from time-to-time.”

“Ahh, the woman who worked for SHIELD. She is a warrior as well?”

“Something of the sort, yes.”

“A fine line your family has. Your brother would be be proud to have them.”

“I’d hope so.” She thought of Sharon and how she had Michael’s eyes and that same Carter penchant for getting herself into trouble.

Thor smiled, this time a small one, more thoughtful, not the gregarious grin he greeted everyone with. “Your brother sounds like a credit to you and your family.”

She couldn’t miss the hint of bitterness that underlied his words and felt somewhat guilty for bringing it up. She’d known from the stories as a child that Loki was the god of mischief, responsible for all manner of dreadful things, but to meet the living proof of it in Thor’s brother had been something else entirely. The raw anger and malice he held for his brother and resentment towards the universe for whatever perceived slight he felt baffled her. She knew it had pained Thor as well, who mourned and missed his brother as much as he was frustrated by him.

“You can’t help who you love,” she mused, thinking of not just his brother but Steve as well. “Whatever the circumstances of his birth and adoption, he was still your brother for all your life. That doesn’t just go away because the truth comes out poorly.”

“I know. I always thought Loki would come to realize that, too. Perhaps he did, in the end.”

The weight of not knowing was a familiar one to her. “How did your brother die?”

She wondered if he had even spoken of it openly. She knew he’d mentioned it in passing to her. Perhaps he’d been more open with Steve, who had known something of losing a brother of the heart in a tragic way. Thor, to her surprise, seemed fairly open in sharing with her, a practical stranger. “In battle. We...I had to do something. Malekith had killed Mother and nearly destroyed Asgard and my father thought to make a stand and risk all our people and their lives rather than find a different solution and draw him away. So, I turned to the one person I knew who had the wiles to think outside of the box, mostly because he never liked boxes over much anyway.”

She chuckled, softly. “No, I can’t imagine he did.”

“Well, when one is trying to be underhanded and sneak under the eyes of Odin All-Father, you turn to Loki. We had a plan, he and I, one to lure out Malekith and to remove the Aether from Jane. It worked...or was working, but like all well laid plans, something goes awry. He died in my arms, our mother on his lips.”

She knew the pain of loss of Michael and that had been distant and far from her. He’d died in battle somewhere where she was not. Even Steve’s loss had been thousands of miles away, with she on one end of a radio in Europe and he closer to Canada. How much worse would have either of those been had been had she been there holding them in those last moments, watching helplessly as they slipped away, unable to do anything to stop it.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” he replied, simply, gazing out towards the city his brother nearly destroyed. “For all his faults, and there were many, Loki I believe cared for me. I hold onto that now that he’s gone. He died a warrior's death, however, and I like to believe he is in Valhalla now with Mother. He always loved her best of all. I think she was the one who understood him best.”

The “halls of Valhalla” were something she’d heard of in the abstract, much as she had heard of Asgard, but as Thor stood before her and he claimed it was a real place, she had to wonder if the same wasn’t true for Valhalla. “If there is such a place as Valhalla or heaven, I hope he is there too. Maybe all of those we loved who died are there, waiting for us to join them.”

“Perhaps,” he hummed, noticeably subdued, the sort of thoughtfulness she had not come to associate with the brash deity. “I would very much like to see him again, one day. It would be nice if we could meet once again as brothers.”

“I hope you do.” She patted his arm in affection, not quite familiar enough with him to wrap an arm around him. “And I’m glad you shared that with me. It is nice to see this side of you.”

His sideways glance was knowing and she had a feeling he was well aware of the distance he kept others at. “You’ve proven to be a woman of singular character, Lady Margaret. I see why you make our Captain so happy. He’s found a worthy companion in you.”

“I think it goes both ways. I’m lucky to have found him, twice.”

“A tale be retold many times over in legends, to be sure.”

“Perhaps not a fairy tale, but an adventure story.” Even she couldn’t believe it half the time. “Speaking of charming princes, aren’t you here to watch the game?”

Thor shuffled his feet somewhat, flushing in guilt. “Yes and I am! I will. This baseball is a rather interesting sort of sport.”

“But…” She could sense that hanging out there like a giant, red flag.

Thor shrugged, glancing towards the closed door furtively. “He gets rather...intense about this, doesn’t he?”

She only just did bite back the smirk as she giggled, covering her mouth. “He’s worse in person. Oh, dear! He does love his Dodgers, even if they aren’t here in New York anymore, and it’s all the worse when they play the Yankees.”

“Such strange names for teams. Dodgers? Dodge what? They seem to like to run towards the ball, not away from it.”

“I don’t know, Steve said it had to do with growing up a street urchin in Brooklyn and trolleys. He gets it.” She waved to the window. “From what I understand there is a lot of resentment about the fact they are in a different city in Brooklyn and even all these decades later they are still angry about it.”

Thor was rather philosophical about it. “I once lost a bet to my dear friends Hogun and Heimdall in the gaming pits that the Bilgesnipe would not lose to the Flerken, who looked very much like one of your Earth cats. A sweet, black and white one with big, green eyes, up against one of the most repulsive creatures in the universe. Well, I didn’t know what a Flerken was until then and needless to say I lost and I resented them both for it for many years.”

“Did you threaten to shoot them with a shotgun, twice?”

“No, but there might have been some lightning strikes on a few bright, clear sunny days.”

“Well, then.” She didn’t even know what to say to that. “I hope they still spoke to you afterwards.”

“Oh, yes! Heimdall still laughs that it was one of the few times he didn’t see what was coming at him.”

There many, many days in this new life that Peggy had to pinch herself and wonder just what sort of strange fairyland she had wandered into. Honestly...aliens, gods, and time travel? What would her childhood self thing if she were to tell her?

From inside she could hear Steve whoop loudly in a way he was usually only prone to doing when there was a score made. He may be close to a century old, but in those moments he was still the little boy from Brooklyn, cheering on his team. She smiled softly, shaking her head. 

“I suppose I should go and see what the score now is and if a celebratory drink is in order.” Thor graciously smiled and made a brief bow, wandering back into the flat. 

As Peggy watched him go, she felt a small bit of satisfaction at having gotten to know a bit more about the God of Thunder and he was nothing like her old storybooks would have her believe. What would Michael have to say to that?


	18. The Smartest One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy learns a bit more about Gabriel Jones.

Gabriel Jones took great pains never to be noticed, which was perhaps why Peggy noticed him so much. She hadn’t thought about it at first. Certainly he wasn’t the most outspoken of the Howling Commandos, though he certainly wasn’t quiet either. Often, he was merely interpreting Dernier’s rapid fire French, capably keeping up with the man and spitting out his response to the others, as if he was merely an extension of the wily Frenchman and not a person in and of himself. It wasn’t a particularly fair way of being in Peggy’s mind, but she suspected he took comfort in it. After all, he was a good soldier, a good shot, brilliant at reconnaissance, and worked well with the munitions expert Dernier, and for Steve that seemed to be enough, but Peggy found herself curious all the same. Which was perhaps why she settled by him one night at the campfire, Dugan’s nearly undrinkable coffee in hand, more to warm her chilled fingers than to keep her awake, determined to get to know this mystery of a man more.

Jones had first watch that night, the easiest of the three in Peggy’s mind, and she had offered to keep him company, unable to sleep in the mugginess of the Central European summer. Around them the other men slumbered, several snored, and the fire burned low as Gabe sat in it’s dim light, his weapon on one side, a book in his lap.

“What are you reading," she opened conversationally, curious as to the thick tome on his lap.

“Hegel in his original German.” He uttered that as if it was a matter of course, one dark finger skimming rapidly down a page as he finished before looking up. “Helps me keep on my toes so I can translate for you all.”

“Clearly,” she teased, smirking at him across the fire as she eyed the book spread out before him. “I meant to catch up on my Hegel as well.”

He grinned, shrugging. “My philosophy professor at Howard gave this to me the day I quit to sign up. Told me to not let my studies slack while I was overseas and I’ve been trying to keep that promise.”

“Good on him.” She had always admired those who went off to further their educations. Michael had gone, of course, it was expected of him by their father, who had been an Oxford man himself. Michael had done his duty, of course, studying the law as their father had. There had been no such expectations placed on Peggy, however, despite the fact she was just as clever and had loved reading and learning as a girl. No, her mother had been firm that Peggy needed no further education, despite her excellent marks, and so she’d returned home after school with the expectation of marrying and producing a family, something she thought she’d not be able to escape from. The war changed all that.

“So you’ve lugged that book all across Europe?”

“Not precisely.” He patted it fondly, running a hand to smooth down the page. “It was in my foot locker at base when I was captured. Was damn lucky they didn’t ship it home to my mama. But there it was, so when Cap sprung us out, I got it back. Have been carrying it with me since then, though. Figured it would throw the Germans for a loop, them seeing a black man reading it. Guess it would sort of shock them that an inferior race spoke their language.”

“It doesn’t shock me.”

He shot her a speculatively doubtful look. “Don’t tell me it didn’t when you heard me chattering with Jacques.”

He had her there. “All right, it did a bit. How many languages do you know anyway?”

“Got down French, German and Italian and may take up Spanish. Know a lot of Puerto Rican fellas who taught me all the swear words already, and it’s not so different than Italian.”

Of course he knew the swear words. “Why languages?” She was curious. She’d learned French in school because it was expected and knew enough German and Russian to get by all right, but they hadn’t come easily to her. She wasn’t horrible, but she certainly lacked Jones’ gift.

“Always was good at them. Ma spoke Creole French. Her people were from Mississippi, just across from Louisiana. My grandparents were from a plantation down there.”

It clicked with her what he meant by that. “Your grandparents were slaves?”

“All my people were, both sides. Ma’s family came from the deep south up to Washington DC at the turn of the century, escaping from the hard times down there, looking for jobs. Daddy’s family were all local, from Virginia. Mix of free men and slaves there, but mostly slaves.”

The very idea boggled Peggy’s very sheltered mind. “For how far back?’

“However long they’ve been bringing colored people from Africa, I suppose. No one really knows.”

To Peggy, with her her painfully upper-middle class English heritage and family trees she could follow to the time of Queen Elizabeth, this seemed unfathomable. “Your grandparents were slaves and here you are, somewhere in Europe, reading philosophy in German.”

“History is kind of funny like that.” He chuckled, closing his precious book and setting it aside. “I guess that’s why I ended up at Howard, because of them. They were all born slaves, but then, there’s my Daddy and Ma, they took a step up. He had a good head for money, she was a good seamstress, so she took in sewing and he did odd jobs till they had enough to start a business in town that did smart clothes for just the colored folks. They wouldn’t let us go into white people’s stores, but Daddy, he had a store where we could shop. Made enough money doing it to send me and my sister to a good school, where we could get a good education, then get into Howard. Daddy hoped I’d become a doctor, come back home and open a practice there.”

“And you don’t want to?”

Jones’s face was comically solemn. “I don’t like the sight of blood.”

All Peggy did was stare at him, let her gaze flicker down to the gun at his side, then back up again. He laughed, quietly, finding the hilarity of it as funny as she did.

“Yeah, I know, I kill men for a living now, but doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I do understand. Being up to my elbows in blood doesn’t sound like a pleasant way to spend my life.”

“Nope, besides, I liked books and thinking. I fell in love with my first philosophy and history courses. The languages I fell into by accident, mostly because I had an ear for them. I like learning things, of finding out pieces of other people’s cultures, why they do the things they do, and use that to help me talk with them, get to know them better. I don’t know, perhaps we’d have a lot less war in the world if we actually bothered talking to each other in our own languages.”

He held up the thick tome in his lap, waving it in the firelight. “I don’t agree with everything Hegel has to say, but I do get what he’s saying, and I guess I see now why some of the German thinkers have some of their ideas. One day, if we win this war, we’ll have to figure out how to live with them again, how to make this all work, and if we want to do that, we have to be able to understand one another and find some common ground. And maybe it’s not much, but it at least is something, a way to breach the gap, because I don’t know about you, Carter, but I am damn tired of us always being in one war or another.”

No truer statement had ever been uttered. “I think it’s a noble cause indeed.”

“Education is how we get out.” He spoke with such quiet earnestness and conviction. “You know, my grandparents, none of them can read. Slaves weren’t allowed to learn and even after they were free, teachers were hard to find. It kept the colored people in their place, didn’t let them get ideas in their head. My parents learned enough to run a business. My sister and I, with our education, imagine the things we can do, the difference we can make, not just for our family, but everyone. People think education is just for the rich and they aren’t wrong, but you can’t change the world unless you can play their game, and do it better than they can. I’m a black man in America, I got to do it better than everyone does.”

His impassioned, soft words struck her, no less because they were earnest as because she had no idea, living in her middle-class bubble in London. “I don’t think I realized, really. University was just something you did because it was expected, and it certainly wasn’t expected of me.”

“No offense, Carter, I’ve seen how your mind works, not a better codebreaker around. Imagine what you could have done if they’d let you use your mind and your skills instead of expecting you to look pretty.”

He had a point, one that few others vocalized openly, and it warmed her that he thought her smart and not just a beautiful girl with a nice figure. “Who says I still couldn’t do something?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he grinned, beaming. “Don’t let the rest of the world tell you who you are, Carter. They don’t know. They see me and see a black man, a boy, someone who is less than them. They don’t know how smart I am, how many languages I speak, that I read German philosophy. No one will know, till I show them what I can do and make them look at me.”

That was a feeling she knew rather intimately well in her own struggles getting where she was. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t back down?”

“The minute you do, they win.”

“Good to know.” She cupped the now cool cup, thought about drinking the murky, sludgy contents, and then thought better of it. “You may be the quietest of all the Commandos, Jones, but I must say that I believe you are the smartest of them all as well.”

“Don’t tell Cap you said that,” he teased, just as the man himself stumbled out of the darkness, groggy and yawning, running a hand through his hair and making it stand on end.

“Don’t tell me what?” He blinked blearily between them as they shared a conspiratorial smile.

“That Peggy secretly runs this show,” Jones offered, teasing as he winked at Peggy.

“S’not a secret, everyone knows that.” He yawned again, rubbing at his eyes. “Remember, do what Peggy says.”

Jones only laughed. “That’s right, Cap.

WIth the changing of the watch, Peggy knew it was late. “I’ll get myself to sleep, gentlemen.”

They both bid her goodnight as she wandered from the warmth of the fire to her sleeping roll just outside of it. As she did, she considered Jones and where had come from, where he was going. He’d be a great man for doing future diplomatic work, if the world could get past the fact that he was brown instead of white. She hoped that on the other side of this war they could find themselves in a world in which he could be the kind of man who could bridge those differences between their various cultures and help avoid wars instead of fight in them.


	19. The Thunder Rolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Howard reconsider the mess they have made.

It had been raining for two weeks straight, a cold, dreary shower that made everything wet and miserable, especially the camp they’d been sitting in for the last month. Peggy glowered as in the distance thunder rolled across the Italian foothills. They had been stymied here, the push through into Austria was slow going across the Alps, made all the worse by Schmidt’s forces winnowing them down. The SSR had been put here to track down his movements. So far all they had managed to do was to lose battalions of men and not much else, with Colonel Phillips unwilling to do anything else to circumvent the problem. 

She looked at the handbill sitting on her camp desk, the one with Rogers’ shy smile on the front, and scowled. It had been a week since her reckless flight over the border and into the Austrian mountains, ground guns firing up at them as Stark maneuvered between blasts as if he were simply driving a flashy sports car. Rogers had thrown himself out of the airplane in the middle of that blast, cocksure he could pull this off. Now, days past when she had expected to hear from him, Stark’s radio signal was still dark and silent, and there was no sign of the Captain or any of the troops captured in HYDRA’s clashes with the army. For all she knew, he could be dead. All the money they had spent on the research, all the work that was put into it, the efforts of Erskine, Steve’s weeks of training, all gone in an instant because she wanted to help him play hero. And of course she did! He’d been hungry to get to Europe, to prove himself as worthy as the next fellow, to show he could be a soldier. From the moment he wandered into Camp Lehigh, that had been his goal, and he’d been relegated to a chorus girl by Philips who had not wanted him in the first place and once he got what he wanted couldn’t bear to use it. She had simply wanted to give Rogers his chance to shine, to prove himself. Perhaps, she had believed that if a skinny man from Brooklyn could get this far, he absolutely could get into a HYDRA facility and have a miracle. Maybe she needed to believe it. So far nothing in this war had been going their way. She had rather hoped Steve Rogers would be the one thing that did.

Another clap of thunder rumbled as pouring rain began to spatter outside, pooling in ruts left by rolling jeeps and marching boots. The wet, the cold, and the thunder all coalesced to underscore her mood. It wasn’t improved by the grim sight of Stark in the distance, dodging puddles as he made his way through the mire to her tent, his usual cocky expression set into grim lines as he shook water from off his head.

“You look as cheerful as the weather,” he quipped, without a lot of humor.

“So do you. What’s the story?”

“Surveillance is back in. With the rain, they couldn’t get good visuals. Schmidt’s facility is dead as a doornail, but it’s not clear if that’s because he’s abandoned it because of our presence or if something else happened.”

It wasn’t anything she hadn’t expected. “And any sign of Captain Rogers or any of our men?”

“Nadda. That’s not to say that they aren’t out there, though. They could simply be following protocol, sticking to less well known routes, hiding when they hear flights coming in.”

Maybe...or maybe her desperate gamble had failed. “Philips is going to like none of this.”

“No,” Stark conceded, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels thoughtfully. “He’s going to like it less that America’s Number One Patriot is now missing and presumed dead.”

Didn’t she know it. “It wasn’t as if he was using him,” she muttered.

“No, but that’s a lot of money, research and political equity he drained into Project: Rebirth only to have the one and only end product of it get killed out there in the field because Rogers wanted to go save his childhood buddy.”

Peggy could only grimace, knowing Stark was right. “And I was the one who encouraged it.”

“Why did you?”

She glared at him from across her tent. “You agreed to fly him in there!”

“Sure, because I’m dumb and like the challenge of testing my aircraft against their guns. You knew that Rogers was Brandt’s golden goose and you sent him in there anyway.”

She sighed, pacing the small, cramped space of her private tent. “Because he wasn’t made to be a showgirl. Because his best friend since childhood was captured and he just wanted to get him home. Because he has always wanted to be given a chance, to have someone believe in him and see him as something more than a scrawny nuisance. Besides, he was going to go in there, whether we helped him or not. I had hoped us helping would have simply just given him more of a leg up.”

Stark eyed her pointedly before shaking his head. “You know, I see what you like in him. You two are alike.”

That she hadn’t expected. “I don’t recall being put through a dangerous experiment to get where I am today.”

“No, but you’re a woman in the military always fighting for someone to listen to you, fighting for respect and to be seen as someone valuable.”

If you had told Peggy Carter that Howard Stark, the world’s most inveterate philanderer, would be the one to make that observation about her, she’d have told you that you were lying. She blinked in shock at him as he stared back, confused. 

“What,” he finally asked.

“I guess I wouldn’t have thought that you of all people would have noticed that.”

His mustache twitched in that characteristic smirk. “I’m a rake and a cad, Carter, but it doesn’t mean I’m completely unobservant. Besides, I’m a genius, or hadn’t you heard?”

She rolled her eyes, sighing. “Well, I hope your observations can help me where Philips is concerned. He’s ready to write off Rogers and move on.”

“And he may be right. We haven’t seen them for days.”

“But that doesn’t mean he won’t show up.”

“But it doesn’t mean he will.” Stark at least put that kindly. “Look, I’m as broken up about this as you. I worked on Project: Rebirth from the beginning, from before there was a war. I knew Erskine since I was a punk kid with big ideas to start up a company, and I invested heavily into this. I wanted to see what Rogers could do, too.”

“Clearly, not as much of either of us thought he could.”

“You can’t win them all, Carter. I’ve learned that in this business.”

“Fair. But Rogers wasn’t a airplane or a gun, he was a human being.”

Stark didn’t really have a reply for that.

Outside the tent she could hear the splash of feet as the voice of Philips attache sounded. “Agent Carter, the Colonel wants to see you.”

She didn’t look away from Stark. “Tell him I’ll be right there.” She waited till she heard the footsteps march away before she looked at the young man's retreating figure. “I guess the carpet is being laid out and I’m being called upon it.”

“You’ll be fine. Take it like a man.”

“What and pass the buck?” She snorted, checking the small mirror on a tent pole to ensure her appearance wasn’t as harum scarum as she feared in this camp. “I won’t apologize for my actions.”

“Which is an easy stance to take when you don’t have to face Philips’ wrath.”

“Like you ever have to. He won’t yell at you. You’re the one who makes his toys.”

“Fair, it does make my life easier. I’d never have done well in the Army. Too many...rules.”

“You are incorrigible,” she muttered, making her way out of her tent.


	20. This Is My Winter Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy contemplates the years alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, there is a story brewing in my Google Drive of Peggy who goes to the future. This is a bit of marshmallow fluff from that concept. One day, I hope to finish it.

The scene outside of the 72nd floor looked like a snowglobe. Lincoln Center sat, pretty as a picture, lit for an event as the swirls of flakes showered down on the well-dressed and well-heeled. They were doing a production of Tchaikovsky’s _The Nutcracker_ as part of their holiday review. Agent Bowden on the 33rd floor had a niece who was performing in it as one of the sugar plum fairies and had offered to get Peggy tickets. She was considering it. It had been years since she’d gone to anything resembling the theater, and she was feeling in a decidedly cheerful, holiday mood.

New York at Christmas was a glorious sight, she admitted that. No other city, save for perhaps her beloved London, could quite measure to the spectacle and romance of this crowded, dingy gray place when Thanksgiving melted into Christmas. She’d always been bemused by the American propensity to turn what had been a sacred holiday in her youth into a spectacle of commercialism and secular celebration, but she went along with it, finding enjoyment in the bright lights, the constant holiday music blaring wherever she went, and the random Christmas themed food items that popped up in places she hadn’t expected. She even admitted to being rather addicted to the coffee shop Starbucks’ peppermint mocha drinks, a fact that would have horrified her younger, wartime self.

“What do you think? Enough ornaments or should I crack out another box of the blue glass ones?”

Peggy turned from the window and her ruminations to stare at the absolutely massive fir tree in her front room, sparkling and glittering like New York itself. Frankly, if she were being honest, she felt it was already ornament heavy. “I think what we have will do.”

“I don’t know. I feel there’s too much red in it.”

She glared at the back of Steve’s head, knowing he was already studying it all with his artist’s eye. “It’s fine, Rogers, and stop trying to turn our tree into your latest art instillation.”

He wasn’t even ashamed of it. “One has to take this tree decoration seriously, as it's how you are judged by all your friends and family during every Christmas party you have.”

“Your jealous of Tony’s interior decorator,” she teased, moving towards their comfortable couch and admiring the rear view of Steve Rogers reaching to place a fragile bulb on the edge of a branch near the top.

“Stark can pay everyone he wants to bring him holiday cheer. I prefer it to be just you and me, a family job, just as it was always meant to be.”

Peggy refrained from pointing out she had a feeling it was Pepper Potts who hired the interior decorators. “I haven’t been doing terribly much on this holiday cheer project of yours, I’m afraid.”

In truth, she had only half been on board the idea of a tree at all. She’d not had one since before Michael died, and honestly it hadn’t occurred to her to put up one herself. But Steve was a product of New York, and the minute the wood-fire smoke mingled with the cold breeze off the Hudson he had been giddy at the prospect of it. As this was his first Christmas since 1945 she hated to be the one to rain on his parade and had accepted the arrival of one 8 foot tall noble fir in her posh sitting room with bemused grace as he had strategized it’s decoration with the sort of singular focus he had once applied to Johann Schmidt and HYDRA.

“You’ve been delegating and keeping up the troop moral!” Steve turned to grin at her as he wandered around his confection of light, glass, ribbon and tinsel. Her only response was to hold up her mug of brandy spiked cocoa in salute, not that the brandy did him any good. It certainly helped her morale.

“I’d keep up troop morale better if one soldier I know of would come and sit like a good boy and enjoy his handiwork.”

Steve only arched an eyebrow from behind the tree, a smirk spreading as he fiddled with something else. “I don’t think my handiwork has anything to do with that.”

She raised a shoulder under her soft sweater, her expression pure mischief as she left him alone to finish his task. She chose instead to pull up music. Tony had been at the sound system in the flat, having set up some sort of computer “network” as he called it, giving her more media than she could ever consume in her lifetime. She missed the old-fashioned radio and record players, the scratch and pop of the sound of her childhood, but she appreciated the handiness of it all at her fingertips. She pulled up what he had dubbed as a “playlist” on her mobile phone, pressing the virtual arrow button that filled the space with Bing Crosby’s crooning voice as “White Christmas” began to play.

“A good choice,” Steve called and she laughed at his approval. While she had been in this strange new world for two years now and had a certain appreciation for more modern styles of music, Steve was less than a year in it and still clung stubbornly to what they remembered from their youth.

“It reminds me of our last holiday together, Christmas 1944.” She hummed at that particular memory. “The Christmas party at HQ in London, when you and your lot came rolling in from Romania, was it?”

“Czechoslovakia,” he corrected. “We’d come back from bombing that one factory outside of Prague. We brought back a keg of Czech beer.”

“That’s right! Stark and Dugan were engaging in a pointless Christmas punch drinking contest we all knew Dugan was going to win. Poor Howard was on his back all through Christmas Day.”

“I distinctly remember you kissing Morita under the mistletoe.”

“That’s because he had it on a stick attached to his cap, if you recall, and he’d made his rounds through most of the women twice that night.”

“Three times.” Steve came to flop on the couch next to her, accepting her proffered cocoa, finally pleased enough with his handiwork to step away. “And Bucky told the story of how, when we were altar boys, he faked being sick right before the procession for midnight mass one year to give my mom time to get to the service to see us.”

“Complete with re-enactment.”

“He could have had a future on the stage.” He sipped from her spiked drink before passing it back. “God, I miss him.”

“I know.” She slipped a hand around his arm, cuddling close as she laid her head on his broad shoulder. She never thought, years ago, she’d have this chance with him, to live the life of the two of them together, sharing the mundane experience of celebrating a holiday.

“It’s a lovely tree,” she admitted as she looked it up and down.

“Thanks.” He was obviously pleased with himself. “It’s a far cry from the bare bones types Mom and I would drag home from the corner lots on Christmas Eve. They were always weedy and bare, but we’d make paper ornaments and popcorn strings. I kind of miss those.”

“We could have had one of those.” She knew there was a certains subset of modern culture infatuated with what they termed the “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree”.

“Nah, I like this one much better.”

“Okay.” She looked it up and down. It wasn’t such a bad tree.

Over the loudspeakers in the house mournful piano began to play, the words sad and melancholy, of love trapped beneath the winter snow and wondering if it was even alive. She listened as she watched the glitter of lights and the flicker of her fireplace, thinking of the man beside her, the winters of him trapped beneath ice and cold, and the long Decembers from then till now, where they sat together with the snow falling outside the window. It had been long, long years of heartbreak while he lay there, forgotten by the world, save by her. She always remembered him.

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice soft in her hair as she realized tears were dripping embarrassingly onto his thick, cable knit sweater, her hand gripping his arm underneath perhaps a bit too tightly. She let him go, sitting up as she tried to hide the evidence, but he was faster than her and longer armed, pulling her back against him.

“Don’t mind me, it’s silly, crying over a song.”

“It’s not silly.” His voice was a deep rumble under her cheek. He’d always had that voice, low and soothing, even when he had a body too small to accommodate it. “I’m here now, Peggy, come frozen hell or high water. I’m here and so are you. Time gave us a second chance.”

It had. She’d followed a madman through a quantum realm to get here. He’d slept beneath the ice for seven decades. There they both were, in each other’s arms, despite the years, the war and the loss. She wrapped her arms around him more tightly, curling in on his middle as she sniffed, still unwilling to let him see the effect of all those years on her. Perhaps it was the brandy making her maudlin. Steve, for his part, was polite enough to simply let her have her weepy moment, large hands moving in sweeps down her arm. They sat in this comfortable silence until a different song came on, less melancholy and more upbeat, but she still curled herself around him, the rhythm of her breathing matching his as they watched the flames.

“You know,” he murmured, a deep roll as she began to drowse in the warm comfort of it all. “That tree doesn’t have a top to it.”

She snorted, thumping a hand against his firm middle. “That tree doesn’t need a top.”

“It’s not a Christmas tree without one.” He reached a long arm to the side of the couch, pulling a box off it and opening it up. “This one made me think of you.”

That mystified her. “Why in heaven’s name would anything you put on a tree remind you of me?”

“I’m a romantic, I suppose.” He held the elegant, dark-haired angelic being, dressed in silvers and golds, a crystal snowflake between her palms, in front of her heart. She was pretty, Peggy would give him that, and the gesture was so sappy as to be saccharine.

“You’re daft.” She rolled her eyes as he got up, delighted with himself. “Did I tell you how I got kicked out of church on Christmas Eve when I was 10 for singing dirty lyrics during the carol service? An angel I’m hardly not.”

“To me, you are.” He was unrepentant as he stood, disentangling himself from her arms and sauntering over to the giant of a tree, carefully placing the little figure on top. “There! She’s perfect.”

“I fear you put me on too high a pedestal, Captain.”

“I probably do, but if you fall off, I’ll catch you.”

“Cheesy lines like that are the reason you were always horrible with women.”

“But, you love me for it.” He had wandered back to her, standing over her as he proceeded to lean in and box her onto the couch with his long arms, lips seeking hers. 

She had to admit, she certainly did.


	21. Trip A Little Light Fantastic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy finally gets Steve to dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love Peggy in the modern setting and I really need to work on this story idea sitting there, and I will...just as soon as I'm done piddling with the Avengers....
> 
> Anyway, a bit of fun for a story I will work on in the future.

In all fairness, what shocked her was not that they did it, but that they had waited so long.

The party was as glittering and loud, filled with people whose faces looked somewhat familiar, but Peggy wasn’t sure why. Tony moved in the same sort of famous circles his father had, and though she was still woefully behind on modern popular culture, she was sure she had seen the actress chatting with Pepper in the corner. Perhaps in the last film she had gone to see? The man at the piano looked like one she’d seen on television, though she didn’t know from where. Still, she wandered the room filled with strangers, all there for Tony’s birthday, her eyes really searching for the one person in the room she would know from anywhere.

“He’s by the bar, hiding.” Natasha was at her elbow, silent as ever, a hint of a smirk playing on her lovely face. 

“Thank you,” Peggy replied, not even blushing at being so obvious. But then again, Natasha saw and understood much. “You look lovely tonight.”

Her short, auburn hair was styled, sleek and smooth above her lavender dress, with its lace eyelets and thin spaghetti straps. She looked impossibly young in it, though she was near to 30. She bobbed a bit of a playful curtsy with all of her dancer’s grace. “Thank you! You look like all the money Tony spent on this shindig. Red suits you.”

As far as cocktail dresses go, it wasn’t the most daring she’d ever put on. Certainly it wasn’t that gold sequin number she used to have in her SSR days, but it was still dangerous by her 1940’s standards. Dark red, silky fabric hugged her, shimmering over her hips as it twisted across her bustline to wrap around her upper arms in an off-the shoulder style she didn’t think she would have been brave enough to wear as herself 70 years before. Around her feet wrapped strappy stilettos, gold leather that wound across her bare feet and legs, making her tower over the smaller Natasha.

“Thanks,” she murmured, grateful for another woman’s eye and opinion. “I have to admit, I was nervous coming in something not as formal as I usually wear.”

“You aren’t the legendary Peggy Carter everyday. Live a little! Besides, after 70 years, I think that good soldier deserves to have his mind blown, don’t you?”

She would have blushed if she hadn’t been thinking the same thing. “That’s the objective, Agent Romanoff.”

“Good luck, ma’am.” She saluted her with her martini glass, melting back into the crowd again, leaving Peggy to find her soldier boy and see just what he thought of the number. As predicted, he was sitting at the bar, well away from the dancing and schmoozing, caught up in some interplay between Tony and his best friend, James Rhodes, as Steve, Clint Barton and the Doctor Banner looked on in quiet bemusement. She could only hear some of it over the jazzy music as she wandered up to the lot of them.

“Do you remember that wild weekend in Bangkok?”

“I wasn’t in the weekend in Bangkok, I was the one getting you out of it.”

“Why were we there again?”

“You went! I was at a conference in Tokyo. You said you wanted Thai and next thing I knew I’m getting a phone call from my commanding officer.”

Whatever else the two were bickering over faded out as Steve finally caught sight of her. In a moment that reminded her of a room in a tired pub, long ago and far away, she watched with quiet pleasure as he stood from the bar in one fluid motion. She suspected it was more out of habit than conscious thought. His movement caused the others to stop and turn, all eyes now on her as she smiled, her gaze only on the tall man in the center of them all, looking somewhat stunned.

Trust Tony, of course, to cut through the sudden silence with something inane. “Aunt Peggy, who knew you’d clean up so nice and attractive?”

“I do know how to cut a figure, Tony. Do remember, I once punched your father into the Thames for crossing lines.”

That only succeeded in making him snicker in delight, but he nodded in understanding. “Thank you for coming to my birthday all the same. You do look lovely.” He brushed a brief, grateful kiss on her cheek.

“Happy birthday!” She patted him fondly as she turned back to her real object, who had yet to recover himself. He watched her with a gaze so intense, she was half afraid she’d burn from it. The others stood awkwardly till Bruce, bless him, finally cleared his throat pointedly.

“Hey, I think I’m going to see what they have to munch on in this joint. How about you, Rhodey?”

The other man caught on quickly. “Yeah, there’s those...shrimp things in the puff pastry. Tony?”

“Er….yeah, I’m going to go see what Pepper is up to. Maybe we’ll meet you up there? Barton?”

Clint blinked mildly at Tony's far-too-obvious pointed expression, then sighed in disappointment. "I go pester Natasha, see if we can start a drinking game."

Peggy paid no attention as the other four wandered off in their clumsy way, leaving only her and her captain to themselves.

Steve finally found his voice, it seemed, as he shuffled his feet. “Tony’s right, you know. You look...stunning.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, soldier.” She eyed him up and down in his slim cut suit, the kind was all the rage in this modern time. She was certain Tony had talked him into. The charcoal gray suited his coloring and drew attention to his broad shoulders and slim waist, the thin, blue tie brought out his eyes, which were staring at her with an intensity she hadn’t known possible. Heart thumping in strange ways, she cleared her throat, glancing towards the dance floor where couples gathered to sway to the time of the live music being played.

“This is rather calm music for Tony,” she noted, more because she lacked anything else to really say that didn’t sound utterly idiotic in the moment. “He’s rather fond of the loud clatter he calls heavy metal most of the time.”

“Music is so strange now at days,” Steve lamented, not for the first time in the two months since he had awoken to a new century. “Barton and Rhodes have been trying to sell me on ‘hip hop’. So far, I’ve not seen the appeal.”

“It’s an acquired taste.” She didn’t want to talk about music, heavy metal, hip hop or otherwise. She had a long overdue appointment with this man and she was here to collect what was owed her. “I do believe, Captain, that you promised me a dance.”

She could see the slight hitch in his breath, panic and longing all flickering in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I don’t think they do anything terribly complicated now at days.” Without hesitation, she reached for his hand, pulling him behind her as she wandered to the section of floor where couples swayed to the smooth sound of the singer supported by the superb piano. She pulled him to the middle, where he couldn’t escape her, turning towards him to place her other hand on his well-muscled shoulder, ignoring the thrill it pulled from deep within her to do so.

“It’s not the Stork Club,” she sighed in faux sadness as she grinned, swaying naturally to the music. For his part, Steve fell into rhythm well, almost as if he knew what he was doing, even if he claimed he never danced in his life.

“No, it’s not. They tore that down, put a park in.”

“I know.” She had visited several times since arriving in this time period, looking forward to the day she could bring Steve there.

“I guess we missed our chance.” He was nervous, she could see it in the tic of his jaw and the flush of his cheeks.

“Did we?” She stepped closer in time to the music, pressing near enough to smell his soap and aftershave, something spicy and slightly old-fashioned and very much him.

His fingers tightened around her waist, the tips practically burning her skin. “We made a lot of promises to each other a long time ago. It’s easy to promise anything to a man who is about to die.”

The truth of the words didn’t mean they didn’t sting any less, but she could hear the underlying fear in them, too. “And yet here you are, hale and whole, and here I am. You survived 70 years under the ice to get here, and I followed a madman through time to find you. I think I’m serious about my promise, Captain.”

His gaze was inscrutable for long moments, studying her. “Why did you do it?”

In the two years since her mad move to the future, she’d asked herself that many times over, but in the end it was quite simple to explain. “I found my dance partner, Steven Rogers, and I’m not going to let a war, or HYDRA, or 70 years take you away from me. Do you hear me?”

He did, because before she could even utter a noise of protest, he had her pulled up against him, mouth crashing into hers as the world and everything in it stopped. Somewhere, beyond her, she knew that there was music and laughter, the chatter of other guests, and couples dancing around them, but in that moment in the middle of Tony’ suite, there was only her and Steve, one hand around her waist, the other crushing the updo she had managed, long fingers tangling as she held onto him for dear life.

When he pulled away, she could only blink up at him, mildly stunned. He looked breathless and undeniably pleased at her state. Was this payback for the one kiss they shared so long ago?

“Well…” She managed only that vague statement, staring up at him with stars in her eyes.

“I promised not to step on your toes. I didn’t say anything about not kissing you.”

Without a word, she grabbed his hand again and pulled him behind her off the floor. He followed, more or less readily, past a bemused Pepper standing beside a smirking Tony. He saluted her with his champagne glass. “Do all the things I would do, Aunt Peggy!”

She ignored him as the elevator doors opened and JARVIS politely informed them that a car was waiting downstairs to take them home. Peggy only muttered a thank you before grabbing Steve’s tie to pull him down to her.

If Tony’s driver was shocked by the idea of Captain America in the back of the car being ravaged by some woman, he didn’t show it. But, then again, being one of Tony’s drivers, he was likely used to all manner of shocking displays. Peggy barely noticed when they arrived on the other side of the city and her apartment there, though they both quickly thanked the man behind the wheel as they scrambled out. She was infinitely glad that the entrance only required a hand scan, as she doubted she could manage keys in the moment. They showed some propriety through the lobby and the elevators to their shared flat, if nothing else because other SHIELD agents were there, but the minute they alighted on their floor and made it inside she grabbed him again, dragging him haplessly to her room. She stopped only long enough to wrestle off the impractical shoes as he slid off his suit coat, but nothing else, He chose instead to stand there, awkward and intense, at a loss as to what to do in a lady’s boudoir. 

“You know you can take a seat.” She grinned, waving towards the edge of her large bed, an item she had thought obscenely big until now, with the full height and breadth of him standing there beside it. He flushed, doing as she bid, nervously perching as she wandered to stand in front of him, nerves and lust thrumming underneath her skin. He stared at her, star sapphire eyes shining up at her in the dim light, breathing ragged as she unpinned her hair, letting it tumble around her pale shoulders. She could see him audibly gasp, fingers curling and tightening into her white duvet. He was so tense, so wide-eyed staring up at her with lipstick smeared on his mouth, and for a moment, she caught the ghost of someone he used to be, long ago, in his face.

“You do know my whole intention tonight was to seduce you.” She let her mouth curl up on one side as she reached behind to the back of the dress, deftly snagging the zipper in the back. Steve watched the moment with eyes that rarely missed anything, but nodded, silent.

“You have no objections, I hope.” She tugged, as the fabric parted ever so slightly.

“No, ma’am,” he managed, hoarsely.

“Good!” She pulled further, drawing down the zipper, letting the crimson sheath slither down her skin to the floor, pooling at her feet. He didn’t say a word, but she watched his eyes follow the silky, shimmering fabric to the floor before they crawled up the rest of the way, to the skimpy and wholly impractical fabric modern women liked to call undergarments. She derided them at first when Sharon had introduced her to them, but she blessed them in this moment. Steve’s stoic face gave nothing away, but she could see his throat working and she smiled.

“Hopefully you don’t sit there and gawp at me all night.”

His cheeks flushed, crimson, as he finally loosened his stranglehold on the blanket below him. “I don’t know, ma’am, last man I saw get fresh with you, you punched him in the nose.”

“I didn’t want his attention. I want yours.”

“You have it,” he murmured, rough and low, a rumble that tingled across her bare skin.

“Prove it.”

He moved fast now, she sometimes forgot that, as his large hands wrapped around her waist, flipping her to the mattress, mouth pressed to hers in hot, wet desperate kisses as his hands wandered over her waist, down her hips and back again, up to the swell of her breast under the crimson satin and lace, cupping her right one gently as he raised himself enough to study his wandering hand.

“I believe we have a tactical problem here, ma’am.” He arched a wry eyebrow as he studied the lay of the strapless bra, it’s hooks in the back and far away from his reach. “It seems the objective is well guarded with a secret entrance that is difficult to breech.”

She could only snort at his ridiculousness, giggling as she sat up, eyeing his own now mussed tie and fitted shirt, skin-tight across his broad chest. “I think you are heavily under cover yourself, soldier. Perhaps we should meet in the middle and agree to open our borders for further negotiation?”

His grin was all the answer she needed. He reared back enough to get up and undo clothes, eyes on her as she unhooked the confection of lace and let it drop off the edge of the bed. He stopped, mid-unbuttoning his shirt, lost once more. Knowing she had his full attention, she hooked her thumbs under the thin elastic bands that held up the scrap they called knickers and shimmied it off her long legs.

She didn’t think she had ever seen her captain turn quite that shade of pink, ever.

“Steve,” she called softly, turning his eyes up to her face. “You’re stalling our diplomatic relations.”

Broken from his spell, his fingers made quick work of the rest of his clothes. It occurred to her she hadn’t seen him this exposed since the war, when he’d been an experiment she had to weigh and measure every few days. Certainly, she hadn’t seen him in this new body since he took the serum. For that one, brief, glorious moment when he emerged, tall, broad and well muscled, it had shocked her so much she had been flabbergasted, something she never was - well, at least until this moment. It was her turn for stunned silence as he stood before her, beautiful in the dim light, and clearly wanting her as much as she needed him.

“Come here,” she whispered as he returned to the bed and her open arms, warm and wanting next to her, long, calloused artists hands sculpting her body to his. Seventy years of longing and lost opportunity exploded violently, burning away the regrets, sadness and loneliness with every kiss, touch, and flick of fingers and tongues, aching for the release of all that was building to an aching peek between them. When he finally glided into her, wet and wanting, a piece of her world that had long seemed missing fell hard into place as she sobbed his name in a broken whisper. She shattered not long after that, hands buried into his hair as she clung for all that she could against the surge that threatened to scorch everything in its path, as he shuddered for long moments, spilling as he buried himself deep, murmuring he would never leave her again.

For long, unbroken moments they lay there, shivering and wrapped in a sweaty tangle, neither willing to pull away in the aftermath. Steve, unsurprisingly, was first to recover, moving enough to roll them to the side, kissing the top of her head softly as he stroked those brilliant hands of his through her now thoroughly mussed hair. Peggy chose to snuggle closer, laying a cheek to his broad chest, listening to his heartbeat in quiet contentment, a sound she once believed she would never get to hear again. She’d have happily drowsed into sleep that way, had she not felt his words rumbling up to murmur into the dim darkness.

“You planned your mission carefully, Agent Carter.”

She only tilted her head back enough to arch a dark eyebrow up at his bemusement. “Did it work?”

“Clearly,” he chuckled, long arms wrapping around her. “God, how did we wait so long to do this?”

“Well, there was a war,” she drawled as he snorted. “And then you had to go and fly your plane into an iceberg.”

“Yeah, not a good plan.”

“No,” she muttered, voice muffled against his skin again. “Though, I have to say for seventy years of anticipation, that was almost worth it.”

“Almost,” he agreed sleepily, yawning as he rolled onto his back, taking her neatly with him. She settled into the crook of his shoulder, wrapping an arm and a leg over him as he pulled a light blanket to cover them both, snuggling her closer.

“I suppose Tony will never let me hear the end of this,” she sighed sadly, realizing she didn’t particularly care or mind.

“As if he’s one to talk. You weren’t kidding when you said he was Howard’s son.”

“In more ways than one, unfortunately. Pepper keeps him in line, now, though. She’s good for him.”

“Mmmm,” Steve grunted by way of reply and she had a feeling that he’d be asleep soon. She looked up at him, his expression relaxed in the pleasant exhaustion of lovemaking. For the first time since he woke up - perhaps for the first time since Bucky’s death - unburdened for the briefest of moments.

“Good night, darling,” she murmured, pressing a small kiss to his chest as his hand stroked from hips to waist, settling there protectively in answer.


	22. Crooked Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy meets the infamous Howard Stark.

Howard Stark was everything everyone said about him and more - and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Peggy had quickly gathered that on this side of the Atlantic, Stark was quickly becoming something of a legend and celebrity. Certainly, he had all the makings for the sort of self-made, American get-rich story that they all seemed to love over here. He was a modern day Vanderbilt or Rockefeller, a man who pulled himself by his bootstraps out of the poverty of the Lower East Side to create his own company while still a teenager and turn it into the single most important weapons manufacturer in the United States, almost literally overnight. He created things that no one had ever seen or dreamed up before, and his inventions caught the public imagination like wildfire. He was on the radio selling his latest gadgets, he was in the paper on the arms of one socialite or the other, and he could always be seen in the news reels showing off his latest inventions for a press hungry for them. Everything about Howard Stark was romantic, from his movie star good looks to the charm and charisma he exuded wherever he went. All this went a long way to explain why it was that the ladies in her barracks were all fairly swooning that the Howard Stark was going to be on base that day and had them scrambling for their best nylons and bobby pins before Peggy could even be bothered to crack open her eyes. She yawned, glancing over to the pretty, doe-eyed girl who served as one of the main secretaries for the scientists in the lab.

“Doris, what time is it?”

“An hour before revellrie. Say, do you still happen to have that red nail polish you got in town last week?”

“In my trunk, top tray.” She frowned as she fluffed her pillow, ready to turn over and go back to sleep. “What is all the fuss about?”

“Howard Stark is supposed to be on base to meet with the colonel this morning!”

That didn’t seem a sufficient enough explanation for Peggy to lose out on an hour of sleep. “I know, I’m in that meeting with him.”

Doris blinked her wide gray eyes at her. “Lucky! Oh, you’ll get to spend the whole day with him!”

“Is there something about him outside of his file I should know about?” Peggy closed her eyes but knew it was no use. Sleep would not be coming back again to her that morning.

“Only that he’s the richest man in America! He’s richer even than the Rockefellers and that’s saying something.”

British born-and-bred Peggy had heard of the Rockefellers in theory but had little practical knowledge of who they were or what that sentence meant. “I’m assuming he’s very rich.”

“Very, very! And he’s just so absolutely dreamy. Those smouldering, dark looks.”

“For God’s sake, he’s not a movie star, Doris, and even if he was, swooning over something that fake is ridiculous.” Perhaps she would have been more charitable had she not been awoken so rudely, and without any tea or coffee either. Doris at least took Peggy’s bad temper cheerfully enough.

“I don’t know, Peg, when you meet him, you’ll understand what I mean.”

Peggy highly doubted that.

So it was that when Howard Stark finally did make his appearance at their 9 AM meeting - rolling into Camp Lehigh at approximately 10:35 - Peggy had a less than stellar opinion of the man already. Ignoring his obvious lack of understanding of any sense of propriety or punctuality, he had also been the cause of her lack of sleep and the general twitterpated excitement that seemed to be in every corner of the base that day. As he made his way down the line of officers and elected officials eager to meet the boy wonder of weapons, she studied him briefly, just to see what the fuss was about. He was handsome, she supposed, in that affected way that said he did it to be impressive, not because it was natural. The way he wore his hair and trimmed his pencil mustache it looked like he was trying for Clark Gable rather than being himself. The cut of his suit was nice, as was the material, obviously handmade and created to be impressive and to show off to these men who he was preparing to meet with. Everything about Howard Stark screamed showman - a fake, a con artist who wanted you to believe he was as wonderful and amazing as he made himself out to be.

When he finally made his way to her, the smile she put on was professional as she could make it. “Mr. Stark, a pleasure to meet you. I’m Agent Carter, your primary liaison here at the SSR. We’ll be working together.”

“I bet we will.” Immediately his mouth twitched suggestively, matching the devilish glint in his dark eyes as they immediately went down her form in her practical uniform, so slowly you’d have thought she was the Venus d’Milo. “And believe me, I’m looking forward to that.”

“Looking forward clearly isn’t your problem, it’s looking up and at a woman’s face you have difficulty with.”

He didn’t even look sorry as he finally regarded her firm expression, grinning unabashedly. “I see you have no problem expressing yourself.”

“None at all, Mr. Stark, but my job here isn’t to glad hand you. After the meeting, I’ll be happy to show you to your lab space and discuss our next course of action.”

Without any further word she spun and marched off to the conference room, allowing the other stuffed shirts to pet and preen over him to their heart’s content. She seethed, silently, throughout much of Stark’s presentation, which was unfortunate. For all that he lacked in respect for women, he clearly made up for in intellect and ability. That he was a genius was clear almost as soon as he began discussing the particulars of Erskine’s formula and the role he played in it. The science behind what they were discussing - the idea of growing human tissue using Erskine’s serum as the buffer to allow for rapid but controlled growth - was beyond anything Peggy would have ever dared to dream, and yet there it was, clearly laid out. Phillips and his boys were clearly impressed. Stark acted as if this was simple science, and perhaps for him it was. The idea of the creation of super soldiers - human beings who were at the peak of their physical condition and who could survive things that most other normal humans couldn’t - sounded as if it were the stuff of pulp magazines. Stark and Erskine had worked it out between them as a theoretical, scientific exercise.

“So what do we need to get it done?” Of course Phillips would want to get down to the nuts and bolts of it all.

Stark looked more surprised that Phillips was immediately going to go for it. “For my part, I need the funds to build a Vita-Ray lab and the energy to get it done. I don’t know many places that have the sort of electrical grid or infrastructure to do what we will be doing.”

“You don’t have it hiding in a pocket of your research lab of wonder, then?”

This caused a murmur of laughter at Phillips’ joke, even at Stark’s expense. The younger man shrugged, going along with it. “I build planes and fiddle with inventions. I don’t make particle chambers to bombard subjects with. Though, now that you mention it…”

“What are your ideal conditions?” That was the adjunct on staff to Phillips, the fellow who had to get these things done at the colonel’s request.

Stark was thoughtful for a moment, and Peggy could see despite all the other bravado and ridiculousness his mind was razor sharp and spinning faster than any she had ever seen. “Ideally, we would want a place to keep it on the downlow. We may not officially be in this slugfest, but the Germans know we aren’t completely impartial either and they have spies everywhere. We need a place we can keep well guarded, but one that’s close to a major power grid, one that won’t notice the sort of juice I’m going to need to run through this machine.”

“So you need a major city, like New York.”

“That’ll do,” he shrugged, as if cities with that sort of infrastructure were plentiful. “I’d suggest maybe a warehouse or somewhere near the docks somewhere, someplace it won’t seem weird we are building an entire lab.”

“And just what will you need in your lab?” Phillips’ sounded like a father being asked by his son for his allowance.

“Leave that to me, a lot of the things we’ll need, we don’t have yet, because no one has done this before.”

That didn’t seem to assuage the colonel any. “What else can we get for you?”

Stark blinked mildly at him. “You’re serious?”

“You tell me you can make the US Army a platoon of enhanced soldiers ready to go into war for us and you ask me if I’m serious. There is a war going on over there Mr. Stark, a party we will be late to. Whatever leg I can get up on our enemy before we officially facing off against them, I will.”

Peggy imagined it was rare that anyone could give Howard Stark something that would make him giddy and he looked as if Phillips had just given him both his birthday and his Christmas present. “Wow...just...I can hop on it as soon as...well, we get the most important part of all this.”

“Yeah, that.” Phillips turned to Peggy. “And that’s where you come in, Agent Carter.”

She already had a sense of where this was going, if nothing else because it was the only piece missing in all this planning. “You need Erskine.”

“The SOE has the most up-to-date data on where he is, unless he’s reached out to you, Stark.”

“Not since just after he was captured, no, and that was just to warn me.” He cocked a curious gaze in Peggy’s direction.

“Erskine’s last known whereabouts were in Austria. Johann Schmidt has several known laboratories there, most of them hidden in a variety of hunting lodges and castles in order to keep them hidden. We’ve pinpointed the most likely location just on the Austrian - German border, a castle that Schmidt has been using as his primary base of operations.”

Stark blinked at her in surprise for long moments. “I thought you were just the secretary.”

Peggy’s fingers twitched, but she otherwise remained cool. “It won’t be an easy affair, grabbing Erskine. He’s kept a prisoner there, access to him is controlled and it would take someone going deep undercover to do it.”

“Could you manage it?” Phillips was serious as he asked it and Peggy felt herself thrill at the chance.

“You want me to head up the mission?”

“What the hell else are you here for, Carter, just to look pretty? I want you to work with our intelligence, interface with your SOE, and get me an action plan in 48 hours. I want us to spring Erskine out and get him settled here and working for us ASAP.” 

He glanced back at Stark. “I want you to treat Agent Carter here real nice from now on or I’m not going to be responsible for the black eye you’ll be sporting when she cocks you in the face. You two have to work together on this and I’m not going to have you ruining our operation by you acting like yourself. You got me?”

Stark looked as if he’d never had anyone tell him that in his entire life. “Err...yeah, sure, I can be...well, that is to say, I’ll be a gentleman.”

Peggy wasn’t sure he knew what a gentleman was, and frankly Phillips looked as if he wasn’t as certain either.

“Good. Carter, show Stark his new working quarters while here on base.”

She rose, eyeing the man and walking out, expecting him to follow. She was mostly down the hall before he finally made it out the door, calling for her as she marched ahead.

“Pardon me, Agent Carter!” She didn’t slow down as he ran to catch up to her. “Agent Carter!”

“This way, Mr. Stark.”

“My friends call me Howard.”

“Do I look like a friend to you?” She scowled at him as she pushed out a door into the sunshine and out across the grounds towards the offices set aside for his use.

“No, but maybe you could be!”

“I’m not sure I want to be the kind of friend you are looking for.”

“All right.” He scowled as she shoved his hands into his trousers. “Look, I’m sorry for being an ass back there. I can’t help it, it’s my natural state of being.”

“So I noticed.”

“I promise, I can do better than that.”

“I hope so if you want this working relationship to prosper.”

“Carter!”

She had reached the top of the steps to the building they had designated as his, spinning to glare down her nose at him. “In this one day alone I’ve had to tolerate the insipid chatter of every female on this base over your appearance, only to have you walk up to me and the first things out of your mouth are hopelessly rude to the point of insulting. You may see women as nothing more than objects of your lust and desire, but I’m not a toy you can play with and toss aside. I’m a qualified agent sent here to aid in the war effort and I’m the spy who is going to get your friend out of Schmidt’s clutches. The sooner you catch on to that, the better it will be for both of us.”

His handsome face drained of all color as he gawped up at her, looking apologetic for the first time that day. Had he ever had a woman not roll over for him the minute he flashed his wallet and winning smile? The very idea made her turn and keep going, heedless of the stunned millionaire she left in her wake.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’ll keep saying it. That line I dropped on you, bad taste, I get it.”

“Since I don’t ever plan on getting close enough to you for you to get a wrong idea, I suggest we let the matter drop and move forward as working colleagues.”

“Not friends?” He looked wounded by that, and she suspected he got by a lot in this life being cultivating these so-called ‘friendships’.

“Friendship from me is earned, Mr. Stark. If you prove yourself worthy of it, I’ll give it to you, but you have to work for it.”

“And you don’t think I can?” He smelled challenge and clearly that was something that spoke to him through all the pride and bravado. “Lady, I’ll have you know that you are talking to someone who has hustled his way here through more shit than you could ever imagine. I may drive fancy cars and wear expensive suits now, but I clawed my way to this spot.”

She had hit a spot, hadn’t she? His wounded pride revealed not only an accent that marked someone from a considerably not posh part of the New York City, but his bravado indicated he did indeed had to hustle for it, and she was sure part of that was likely illegally. She’d pricked something in that ego of his and she found herself curious about it, despite herself.

“I don’t know what you’re capable of, Mr. Stark. You may surprise me and turn out to be the most valuable of friends. Till then, let’s work at treating each other with a bit more respect, shall we? Your labs will be right here.” She pushed through double doors that lead to a rough building on the outskirts of the camp, far away from where the bulk of the buildings were, in case of an unexpected accident.

He followed and wisely kept his mouth shut.


	23. Taking A Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Steve contemplate what comes next after Erskine's death.

“So much for our secret mission.” Stark tossed the copy of the _New York Evening Post_ on the table in front of her, smoothing his moustache in mild frustration as he flopped in the chair beside her. “Erskine dead, Rogers face plastered all over the New York rags, and HYDRA well aware of what we were up to and now the public is going to be all over this.”

“Phillips has Washington doing damage control.” Peggy could only sigh as she studied the grainy photo of Steve Rogers, fresh from Stark’s Vita Ray chamber, trying to protect himself with little more than a cab door as he raced, barefoot, through the Brooklyn dockyard. Frankly, it was a wonder he hadn’t gotten killed and scuttled the entire thing. She sighed, considering the kindly German scientist who had died at HYDRA’s hand.

Stark was clearly reading her thoughts. “Abraham didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“No, he didn’t.” Erskine had been through so much at the hands of HYDRA, all over this serum he had created. He never spoke of them, but he knew of his dead wife and children, the family taken by Schmidt as guarantee for his cooperation and ultimately sent to their deaths. The wife had some Jewish family as she recalled, the pretext for taking them. Perhaps they were together now in the afterlife, if there were such a place.

“Phillips is putting together a funeral for him. I said I’d foot the bill for it all, something simple. He didn’t like anything over the top.” Stark of course had the money for it and had known Erskine the longest, since before he was the hot shot, playboy industrialist and was simply just a teenage wiz kid. Underneath the veneer of New York cynicism and charming eccentricity, she knew Eskine’s death had hit him hard.

“In the meantime, we’ve just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a top-secret project that was successful but we can’t recreate it.” She waved a hand at the boxes of Erskine’s research notes, all written in German in his cramped, tidy hand. Much of it was insightful, little of it was useful.

“That’s ‘cause he kept it all right up here.” Stark tapped the side of his head ruefully. “Erskine was far too worried about what would happen if others got their hands on his formula. He didn’t trust anyone, not the US government, not the other scientists, and especially not me.”

That shocked her. “Why especially not you?”

“Erskine knew me too well. Smartest thing he ever did, because of course I’d think I could do it bigger and better and conveniently make a buck off it. I know my foibles, Carter, and I can’t say the man was wrong.”

He certainly took that with more grace than Peggy would have given him credit for. “Rogers is being poked and prodded up and down to see if they can figure anything out from that. In the meantime we now have one of the best and most capable human beings ever created and Phillips wants to send him to New Mexico to sit out the war.”

“What and have him take out armadillos and sagebrush? All that’s out there is a military base and...well, not a military base.”

“Howard Stark, the great outdoorsman and explorer.” She shook her head at him. “I think that’s rather the point. Alamogordo is about as far away from fighting - and spies - as there is and he wants to wrap Steve Rogers up in wool and send him there.”

“Yeah, but what does Rogers want?” Stark voiced the one question no one else had asked, though Peggy thought it.

“Do you think that the US Army is in the habit of giving people what they want?”

“Again, this is why I would never do well as a soldier.”

“And why they have you making the weapons.” She pulled herself out of her chair with a sigh, regarding the newspaper again sadly. “I better go check on our patient and see how he’s doing.”

“Probably still trying to figure out how not to put holes in walls, I’m guessing.” Stark reached for the paper, opening it up. “It’s like a second puberty for him. I bet he put on a foot at least.”

And that was the least of the changes Steve Rogers was going to have to grapple with.

It had been unclear in the chaos following the procedure where they would go and how to move forward for the evening, whether they would return to Camp Lehigh or not. In the end, they’d elected to stay in Brooklyn at the facilities the SSR had built, with herself and Rogers bunking there for the evening. She searched the sprawling, hidden facility for some time before coming across him on the roof, the last place she would have looked, but perhaps the first place she should have as it was about the only solitary place where one could have some space to think.

He was on the far corner, overlooking the sprawling streets, the grids of brick that made up his hometown. It was so strange to see Steve Rogers now, silhouetted against the faint glow of street lights. The man who just that morning had been shorter than her was now massive. He had come out of the machine taller and broader, the frail, weak chest that had barely held up his form broadened and filled out. She blushed at the memory of her own reaction to his new form just that morning, how she had reached out, almost automatically, just to touch the now suddenly defined pectoral muscles just to see if they were real. Perhaps it was the most inappropriate thing she could have done, but she had reacted almost on instinct, stunned that the sweet, brave young man who had gone into the machine had come out so transformed.

She wandered behind him now as he stared out on the city, turning only slightly at the drag of her footsteps. If Erskine was right, his hearing should have improved as well, as would his other senses. Still, he didn’t pull away from his quiet rumination as she wandered beside him to stare out towards the docks beyond and to the East River and the tall rise of Manhattan across the way. It glittered like a crown in the darkness and she had to admit that the city was quite something else.

“Come to make sure I don’t do anything else stupid?” His voice was a quiet rumble.

“I don’t know that you did anything stupid to begin with.” She shrugged as she leaned against brickwork and concrete to stare out at the view below. “You caught Erskine’s killer.”

“But not before he killed himself.”

She shrugged. “HYDRA operatives have been known to have false teeth implanted with cyanide inside. You couldn’t have known that.”

He only shrugged now broader shoulders, still weirdly looking as he had that morning, like the skinny man who was uncertain of himself. “You know, he told me last night about how he was forced to make the formula for Schmidt and what happened.”

“Did he tell you all of it?” She highly doubted Erskine would mentioned the actual “red skull” part of that story to Steve before his procedure in the morning.

“He told me that it enhanced everything, including what was inside. An evil man, it would just enhance that part of him more, while a good man…” He trailed off, pensive.

“A good man could be great, I know.” She had mildly scoffed at the notion when Erskine had said it, doubting any of the recruits that Phillips trucked in would fit his high qualifications, and in truth, none had. Perhaps this hometown hero might.

He shrugged massive shoulders as if he was clearly unsure still what to do with them. “You know, I lied my way into every recruitment station in the city and none would take me except the one at Stark’s expo.”

“I remember. I saw the list.” Her smile was pointed but understanding. “I hate to say it, but you really are a horrible liar.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” He only shook his head ruefully. “That last one, I hadn’t planned on it, really. I was there at the expo with Bucky on a double date. They were all caught up watching Stark's flying car and I snuck over there. Bucky and I argued about it. He never understood why I kept doing it, trying to get in.”

“Why did you?”

Up went those massive shoulders again. “I think mostly because they kept telling me no.”

Peggy couldn’t help but smile at that statement. She was intimately familiar with being in that position. “Because you were tired of being seen as too weak, too frail, too incapable to do something when you knew all along you could do it better than anybody.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, amused gaze sliding towards her. “You of all people would get that.”

“I do understand, yes. You just want someone to let you have your shot.” She perhaps understood that sentiment better than most anyone in this facility did, certainly better than his best friend had, she surmised. “You said you didn’t know why a dame like me would ever get involved in the war.”

Even in the dim light on top of the facility, she could see his now striking face flush with the remembered words of that morning. “Listen, Agent Carter, I’m sorry for…”

Before he could insert his now larger foot into his mouth, she cut him off. “I got in it because of my brother.”

Despite the years, and she could hardly believe she said that in plural, the ache rose anew, like it always did when she considered her brother and that fateful day. “I was nineteen and just out of the schoolroom, really. When we declared war on Germany, Michael signed up, but being a woman, obviously, I couldn’t. So, I volunteered. I started nurses training because that was an acceptable form of work for ladies, but frankly it bored me. Besides, I have horrible bedside manners, it would never have worked. I had always been keen with maths and numbers, so I applied for a position as a codebreaker. Was good at it...very good at it...enough so, people noticed, I suppose.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I got engaged.” Even now she couldn’t help rolling her eyes at herself. "Fred was quite a bit older. His mother and mine were friends, so we were in all the same circles. He hadn’t seen me since I was in school and I suppose my mother rather pushed us into it, thinking Fred was a good match. Looking back, we were so ill suited for one another, but I was young and didn’t know I could say no to a man who was interested in me, let alone my mother, my friends, society and their expectations.”

“I’m guessing if you are here then that the wedding didn’t happen?”

“No, it did not.” There had been much wailing and gnashing of teeth on that score, mostly from her mother. “The one person who didn’t like the idea of me marrying Fred was Michael, my brother. He and I had always been thick as thieves, from the time we were little. He knew me better than anyone. He called me out on it, said Fred wasn’t right for me, said I could be doing something else. He was right.”

“So you left poor Fred high and dry at the altar because your brother told you to?” There was teasing laced in Steve’s words, but she could hear the hint of empathy for her former fiance too. Rather than snap at him, she found herself shrugging sheepishly.

“I admit, I was in love with the idea of being ‘in love’. All my friends were getting married, mostly because of the war I suspect, and my mother, of course, had dreamed of my wedding day since I was in the cradle. I think I was doing it because...well frankly, because it was what was expected of me. Even just this morning, you asked why I would be doing this with the implication that I was pretty enough not to.”

She had him dead to rights and he flushed, knowing that she got him. “Fair, I get it, expectation. Everyone looks at us and makes assumptions.”

“And the assumption was that I would settle down and be a good little wife, But, Michael knew I’d be horrible at it. He recommended me for the SOE.”

“That’s how you ended up here?”

“Eventually, though at first I refused it.” The memory of that ugly argument with him the night of her engagement party still stung even after all this time. “I thought that Fred was my future. I told Michael as much, refused to give it a second thought. I told myself with Michael in the war and Mother already fretting over that, I didn’t want to worry her more with two children in harm’s way. Honestly, I think it was much more that for once in my whole life, my mother and I were getting along. She was happy with me...proud. I had always been a trial to her, I admit it. We were like cheese and chalk, as different as could be, always had been. But the moment I settled with Fred, we actually began to...I don’t know, be friends. I hated to disappoint her. I hated to cost Father the expense he laid out for it. As for Fred, he was such a good chap, I didn’t want to break his heart. So, I told Michael I wasn’t going to pursue it and we quarrelled. He left to go back to base. That was the last conversation we ever had together.”

She trailed off in silence, letting the quiet settle on them both. Of course, quiet was a relative term, even this late at night cabs still wandered the streets and noises could be heard echoing from further corners, but neither of them spoke for long moments as she collected herself.

“I suppose,” Rogers finally broke, softly. “Both of us are trying to take our shots to prove ourselves in all of this. For the people who believed in us, like your brother and Erskine, we have to make their belief in us worth it.”

He spoke with such grave determination that Peggy couldn’t help but blink in awe at him for a moment. “I suppose we will.”

His slow shy smile broke as he ducked his head, chuckling softly as he did so. “I’m never going to get over this.” He gestured broadly at his new body. “I mean, honestly, the fact I can take a full breath without my lungs spasming or tightening is weird enough, but my feet are so far down there.”

She grinned, the serious turn of their conversation broken as she regarded him. “You’ll have to take it out dancing sometime, I suspect.”

“Dancing? I’ve got to figure out how to not trip over my own feet! I don’t even know what to do with my hands. They’re huge now.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure out something.” Truly, he did look a bit unwieldy at it all, like a colt who suddenly found himself in destrier’s body. “What will anyone say when they see you like this?”

“Only people who’ll care are Bucky’s family.” His pained grimace said it all. “I told them I was joining a military research project for the war, not that I was the guinea pig. Alice and Becky will give me five kinds of heck about it, as will their mother.”

“And Bucky?”

He only mildly shrugged at that. "He’s not here to keep me out of doing the stupid, so he doesn’t get to complain.”

Rogers childish petulance only made her laugh. “Come along, then. We’ll go downstairs. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do next.”

For her part, she hoped Rogers proved worthy of the shot he had been given and of the opportunity now afforded to him. Certainly, he seemed to be special enough for Erskine’s high expectations. Now, they just needed Phillips to have faith in him as well, and for Rogers to have faith in his own worth.


	24. Raise A Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy has a drink with the Howling Commandos.

The objective was simple: eight glasses of premium, single malt Scotch, procured by one Sergeant James Barnes, to be drunk in quick succession without breaks. The first one done was declared the winner by the others, to have honor and glory laid upon them forever more...or something to that effect. Really, all Peggy knew was that the loser had to take second watch for the next month and that delighted her to no end, so she happily bellied up to the table across from Dugan, expressionless as she eyed his leering face with its bushy, bristling red moustache across the table.

“I don’t know how I feel about taking on a woman like this.” He eyed Barnes who sprawled lazily in the chair beside them. He was serving as a judge and had little sympathy for Dugan’s crisis of conscience.

“What, you don’t think Carter can take you on?”

“I wouldn’t say that and stop putting words in my mouth, Barnes. I’m saying that it doesn’t seem right to be getting a woman and an SSR agent intoxicated is all.”

“But it’s okay to get a loud mouth man and US Army sergeant drunk?” She placed her hands steadily on either side of the long row of tumblers. “Or are you too afraid to take me on, Dugan?”

Her challenge lit a fire in his pale, blue eyes. “You want to do this, Carter? I’m not above taking you on.”

“Then on my mark,” Barnes announced, staring at his wristwatch. “In five...four...three...two...one…”

No sooner than the word left his lips than Peggy had the first tumbler up to hers. Fifteen seconds later she had successfully swallowed eight mouthfuls of warm, smokey liquid fire while Dugan finished his last one up. She held her arms up in victory.

“I do believe we have a winner!” Barnes snagged one of her wrists as Dugan set his tumbler down, shaking his head to clear it at Peggy’s smug grin. “Face it, Dugan, you just got drunk under the table by a girl.”

“A lady is more like it,” Dugan corrected, winningly.

Peggy took his gesture as graceful as she could manage with that much Scotch flowing through her veins. “Hardly one of those the way I just drank, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“You need to know a better class of lady,” Dugan insisted, a bit hazily with drink and conviviality.

“Whatever, you got second watch for the next month.” Barnes clapped her shoulder, clearly pleased with this outcome. “Come on, Carter, for that I’ll buy you something tasting less like dead Romans.”

“Not after eight hits of Scotch you aren’t.” Already she was warm and muzzy, the lights a kaleidoscope of halos as Barnes offered her a hand up. “I haven’t done that since...well, my brother dared me to do that right after I left school. I won.”

“Where do you put it all?” Barnes steadied her as she smiled, wandering to where the rest of the group sat together, several cups into their own celebration of a job well done, clapping as she plopped gracelessly between Rogers and Falsworth. She grinned at them all as they toasted her achievement, grabbing her own half-finished beer.

“Never thought I’d see the day anyone would beat that alcoholic at his whiskey,” Morita belched after a long pull of his beer.

“I still drink you under the table,” Dugan grumbled as he settled next to him.

“Barely,” Morita snorted, which was more than a little true. Morita held his own with the booze, which meant he often was dragged into Dugan’s potable challenges.

“All I know is the rest of us get at least one sleep period uninterrupted and we get a break from the worst of Dugan’s snoring.”

“Better than your farting!”

That lead to a general chorus of laughter as Dernier rattled something off in such rapid fire French, Peggy’s Scotch-addled brain melted trying to keep up. Thank God for Jones, who looked askance and shook his head. “I’m not translating that.”

“Now, watch the language, boys, don’t want to slip up in front of the movie cameras.” Rogers school-marm tone was belied by the wicked smile he had for the hijinks, though Barnes only snorted at him as he pulled deeply from his own mug.

“Don’t let Steve fool you, the uniform isn’t the only blue thing about him. What did you call Sister Mary Ignatius that one time?”

“Something that had her washing my mouth out with Lux and on my knees saying so many Hail Marys I was doing them in my sleep.”

“You cursed at a nun?” Morita impressed enough to be awed. “I already thought you were a bit of a bad ass.”

“Only women alive who can scare the hell out of me,” Dugan rumbled, before eyeing Peggy ruefully from under his bowler cap. “Present company excluded.”

“And I thought you found me a lady, Dugan,” Peggy teased mildly. More chuckles sounded, melting into good natured quiet. Their most recent campaign had been a success and they had returned to headquarters in London in triumph. HYDRA was on the run and Schmidt had personally put out a bounty for Steve Roger’s head. Barnes had already joked that it wasn’t the first bully that had targeted him personally and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Now, they simply enjoyed an evening together in the relative safety of London, with beds to sleep in rather than bed rolls, hot showers, and warm food. The shower alone sent Peggy into longing for a nice long soak and the soft comfort of bed.

“I cannot wait for this to be done.” Dugan drained his mug, setting it heavily on the table.

“You just finished, you lug,” Falsworth teased, much to Dugan’s irritation.

“Nah, I mean the war. I can’t wait for it to be done.”

“Can any of us?” Morita eyed the table blearily, slouched in his chair. “I mean, not that I don’t love being in your gracious company.”

That caused more good-natured laughter among them as Dernier flung an arm around Morita’s soldiers, affectionately.

“He says you’ll always be the brother of his heart,” Jones automatically translated to a visibly touched Morita.

“Tell him thanks and I hope this means he’ll hook me up with the wine when this is all done.”

Dernier managed a gleeful “Of course” before standing to grab Morita’s face in his hands and stooping to kiss both cheeks. The poor man spluttered as the hilarity of it all brought the rest of the Commandos near to tears.

“You said brother, not girlfriend! Gees, how do they do it in your family?”

“Seeing the dames you pick up, Morita, probably the best kiss you’ve had in a while,” Barnes teased, ducking from a well-aimed crisp packet at his head.

“Look who's talking, Barnes, you and Stark have a new one every time I turn around.”

“I’m not as bad as Stark,” Barnes protested.

“No one is as bad as Stark,” Falsworth chimed in. “He’s rich, he gets away with it.”

“Oh, to be rich,” Barnes opined, glancing to Steve in a way that seemed to indicate this was a familiar topic of conversation for the two Brooklyn boys who grew up seeing poverty in their neighborhood. “What any of us wouldn’t give to be that!”

“Everyone except Falsworth, here, seeing as he’s got that sweet, noble title waiting for him when his uncle dies.”

Falsworth took Dugan’s gentle ribbing in good stride. “Except he’s indebted the estate and it would cost me more than it’s worth to fix it up. Likely I’ll just keep the title and chuck the manor house.”

“Still, must be nice to know you get to go home after the war and be an earl or something. What do they do, anyway?”

“If I don’t have an estate, I’ll have to work like the rest of you blokes.”

That earned a round of boos from the table.

“What good is being a lord of something if you got to work?” Morita was less than impressed.

“Could go into Parliament and do something there,” Peggy offered, earning a horrified glare from Falsworth.

“Who would want to do that? I think I’d rather stick to what I’ve been doing, maybe join British Intelligence or the Foreign Office. Much more exciting than poncing with the port-and-cigar brigade.”

“Well, that’s Monty all squared away for after the war. What about the rest of you all?” Dugan eyed the table. They all looked back, ruminating, as it all became clear he was serious about hearing what they planned to be up to if and when this entire war ended in their favor.

Unsurprisingly, Dernier was the first to speak, rattling off something in rapid fire French.

“He says he’s going back to Marseilles and his wife and son when it is done. Maybe he will start a company that will clean up all the destruction and explosives after the war, try and help rebuild. Grow to be a fat old man with too many grandchildren.”

“Not bad,” Dugan nodded as the rest liked this plan for their compatriot. “What about you, Jonesy? Back to school for you?”

“That degree won’t finish itself and my mama won’t let me sleep till I finish it. Maybe I’ll stick around, get a doctorate or something.”

“You’ll be the pride of us all, Jonesy. Just you wait!” Barnes saluted the other man with his beer. The others following suit as Jones bashfully shrugged.

“What will you do, Barnes, without the rest of us to mother and henpeck till we are sick of you?” Dugan’s teasing had a point. Bucky Barnes was as protective as he was brave and a deadly shot, which made him a brilliant sniper for the team and more than a bit of annoyance when he pestered them about basic safety.

For his part, Barnes was unapologetic. “Outside of making sure this lug gets home to my mother in one piece so she lets me sleep in my own bed?” He eyed Rogers up and down. He failed miserably at trying to look innocent. “I don’t know, really. Before the war, Steve and I were doing art classes. I was thinking of doing industrial design, you know, making things for the future.”

“Could always go and work for Stark when this is all done,” Morita pointed out.

“We’ve talked.” He studiously ran a finger along his half-empty pint, pointedly ignoring the surprised look from his best friend. “I mean, I’m not nearly as good as he is as an engineer, but I like design and have some ideas. We’ll see what happens. Got to get out of this alive.”

“As if Cap would let you get killed,” Dugan rumbled.

Both best friends sort of shrugged at that and Peggy found herself very busy with her own drink. War didn’t work like that, she knew that all too well. As much as you would like, you sometimes couldn’t stop a best friend or a brother from dying in a war. 

But high spirits willed out as Steve cut through the emotional minefield rather than dwell in it. “How about you, Dugan? Back to Boston for you?”

There had been something of a friendly rivalry between the boys from Brooklyn and their fellow Irish-American from Boston, mostly over civic pride and baseball as far as Peggy could tell. Dugan shrugged his massive shoulders, tipping back his bowler as he stroked his massive moustache.

“Thinking I might just stay in this gig, frankly. I kind of like fighting. It’s something I know, what I’m good at. Hell, been doing it since I was frankly old enough to start gnawing ankles, so what else would I do with myself?”

“Lord help the US Army,” Morita snickered, playful punching Dugan in the shoulder even as the other man mildly glared at him.

“And what about you? Don’t want to stick it out here with me, see the world?”

“And have to drag you out of every bar? No thanks.” Morita’s good natured cheerfulness dimmed somewhat. “Nah, I wanna go home, see if they let my family loose yet, try and get them set back up again. They had a farm in Fresno, raising vegetables, fruit, you know, did really well. Had to leave it all behind when they started rounding up the Japs.”

Morita didn’t talk about it much, but they all knew what had happened with everyone of Japanese descent on the West Coast of America, gathered up and sent to internment camps. Peggy admittedly found it rich that a government saying that it was fighting a war for freedom was incarcerating its own free citizens because of their ethnic ties, but then again all that seemed to get brushed away in the interest of “national security”. 

“Anyway, they have a foreman, named Collins, he’s been taking care of it for them so it’s not a total wash, but they are lucky. Many folks lost their businesses. Still, I want to go help them get back on their feet. Then, I don’t know. Farming isn’t exactly my thing.”

Dugan chortled. “You in overalls and a straw hat? That would be funny as hell.”

“Least I don’t wear a bowler every day of my life like I walked out of some Victorian melodrama,” Morita snapped without much heat.

“Hey, my father gave me this hat, so don’t knock it.” He patted it affectionately. “Old man didn’t leave me much but a name, two fists and a hat, but that’s enough.”

That was something, Peggy admitted, more than some got. “I think with that you’ll do all right, Timothy.”

He preened a bit at that.

“Speaking of, Carter, what about you?” Dugan’s piercing eyes pinned her down where she sat, speculation she wasn’t sure she liked glittering there. “What’s after the war looking like for you?”

That was the million dollar question, now wasn’t it? She admittedly hadn’t given it much thought beyond the vague hope that the war would end sometime soon, that all this death and destruction would come to and end and they could go home. But then again, what would that mean for her? Did she want to go home? Frankly, that wasn’t a prospect that was enticing. It didn’t take much of genius to figure out that nothing would ever be the same there ever again. Whole portions of England had been destroyed - London was a shambles, for certain - and the years of war had left the economy in ruins. They would be years recovering and the continent would be little better. The empire of her youth, for good and for ill, would be irrevocably different and she wasn’t certain there would be a place for her there. Certainly, she didn’t wish to return to her parents’ home, with her mother’s disappointment at the loss of Fred Wells as a son-in-law. She couldn’t imagine the SOE would have any use for her once the fighting had stopped and her role as liaison to the SSR was completed. Colonel Phillips would return to America, as would the 107th, the Howling Commandos...and Steve Rogers.

“I don’t know.” The words tumbled out automatically, and she found herself regarding the blinking faces of the men she fought alongside, realizing they expected it to be simple. For them as men, perhaps it was simple. “I suppose I haven’t given it much thought beyond winning.”

“Can’t babysit the likes of this bunch forever,” Barnes teased.

“Look who's talking,” Dugan shot back as the ribbing between the men revved up once more. Only Rogers didn’t jump in. He merely eyed her quietly with an expression that was unreadable.

“How about you, Cap?” Falsworth cut through the brewing game of insult one upsmanship between Barnes and Dugan, bringing all attention to Rogers, who had been quietly through most of the joking. “I mean, you fought like hell to get into this war. What will you do after?”

She could almost see Rogers cringe at the question being thrown at him. He’d kicked and screamed his way into being a soldier. What in the world would he do once there was no longer a war to be fought?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly, echoing Peggy’s same uncertainty. “I mean, like Buck said, we were in art school before the war.”

“He’s leagues better than I am,” Barnes jumped in, clapping a hand to the back of Roger’s head, tousling his hair affectionately. “Ever since we were kids he had talent. Could make a go as an artist.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I’ve seen that notebook of yours, Cap. You got skills.” Jones eyed the side pocket on his practical, pocketed trousers where he kept it safely on him at all times.

“Sure, I got skills, but I think I like having food and shelter more than anything now at days.”

“That’s the real reason he went into the army, boys, for the food and a place to sleep.” Barnes couldn’t help but take the piss out of him and Rogers was all too happy to flip a hand back to smack his best friend in the chest, causing the other man to audibly grunt and wince.

“Watch it, jerk, you pack more of a wallop than you used to!”

“Maybe I meant to,” Rogers shot back, mulishly, the look of a brotherly spat beginning to form as Peggy decided to intervene.

“Gentleman, you can rough house outside later.”

That at least brought them both well short. “Sorry, Peg,” Rogers murmured, boyishly, shooting the unapologetic Barnes a brief glare. “Anyway, the life of a starving artist isn’t for me I’m afraid. Besides, I got this body the SSR made now. I don’t know what they will want to do with me.”

“You mean you don’t just get to go and live your own life?” Morita was rightly horrified, as were the others. Barnes looked absolutely murderous and glared at Peggy as if she had any say on the matter.

“Whether you stay or go is up to you, Rogers,” she hastily put before Barnes murdered her in her sleep. “Just like everyone else. The Army may reserve the right to ask you to stay, but if you wanted to decommission out when it's all said and done, that’s up to you.”

That mollified Barnes and the table, but Rogers was far more circumspect about it. “We’ll see when and if we get there. Right now, I’m just focused on this mission, then who knows. Maybe I’ll be boring and settle down with a house and family, the regular joe sort of life.”

“Settle down with the right girl, have a pack full of kids, and make me an uncle already. I want to spoil them rotten.” Barnes was far more delighted by this idea, and of course he would be. Rogers as a family man meant he was in one place, safe and well behaved, without the need to be protected.

“Notice Barnes isn’t so quick to mention him doing the same thing,” Falsworth teased as Bucky shrugged.

“I’ll get there, maybe, but why push it when we got nothing but time?”

“So says the man who is in a unit with a pack of loonies who may get themselves killed any day.” Dugan snorted, lifting his mug up high. “Here’s to all of us, the howling mad lot of us.”

One by one they each raised their glass of whatever they were drinking to toast cheerfully with one another. Peggy raised her own lukewarm pint, finishing off the last dregs and setting it down with a hard thump. She regarded them men around her, the unit of crazed idiots who all willingly threw their lot in with an untrained super-soldier with hardly any training to barnstorm across Europe, picking off HYDRA targets and raising hell wherever they went. This was hardly the elite force of soldiers she knew Phillips envisioned when they first started this mad endeavor, but she was damn certain she wouldn’t trade this lot for all of the super soldiers in the world...perhaps save one.

“So, Carter,” boomed Dugan, belching loudly after downing the rest of his pint. “I say we need a rematch! Something that tastes a little less like gasoline filtered through greasy ash. Barnes, we need some Kentucky Bourbon!”

On second thought, she snorted tipsily, perhaps she might just trade these drunken reprobates after all.


	25. A Bit of a Domestic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve confesses to Peggy about Sharon.

Peggy barely looked back at the quiet bewilderment on Steve’s face as she backed out of the driveway, stormily pulling into the quiet street, tires peeling. She was sure her neighbors would be shocked, but she hardly cared. On the top step, Steve stood, hands in his pockets, watching her go without saying a word. Even that stoic acceptance annoyed Peggy as she childishly gunned the gas, pointing her car who knew where. She was angry, livid, hurt, and she didn’t care where she was, as long as it wasn’t her charming little house where the love of her life had come home to her, finally, only to break her heart.

Her niece? Her niece!

Peggy had been so caught up in Steve’s miraculous return, the strangeness and wonder of it all, that she hadn’t bothered to think through the real implications of what it all meant. That he had lived for 70 years frozen under the Arctic, sent into a coma-like sleep, frozen and protected by the serum she’d had a hand in developing, while mind-boggling, it made sense given what she knew on how it worked. Time travel, all right, that was so insane as to not be believed, except Howard had confirmed the theory of the possibility, so she had accepted that willingly enough. All the crazed, mad, wonderful, and heartbreaking stories of Steve’s adventures in the future, all of those she had listened to, wondered at, and wept for, even if the idea of alien life forms and universe ending gemstones sounded as if they came straight out of the magazines Barnes had been so fond of reading (and apparently he was still alive, which hadn’t even blipped on her measure of strange at this point), all of this, Peggy had accepted with grace and as much dignity as she could muster. But this last bit…

Honestly, she had no one to blame but herself. Given everything, the lies and deceptions she had wallowed in of late, Peggy had wanted to be as up front as possible with Steve, especially with him. He’d never taken to deception, and so she had told him honestly about Daniel Sousa, of their brief romance, of their now respectful friendship. For his part, Steve had been all graciousness, much to Peggy’s relief, though she was unsure what she had even thought he would say. When he’d returned the favor to share his own story, it had gone over with far less grace.

“My niece?” She had blinked stupidly at him, her mind melting as she tried to wrap her head around what he meant by that.

“Technically, your great niece. Her father was…”

“Harrison,” Peggy cut him off, rubbing her temple a she tried to even process what he was saying. “Michael’s son.”

“I didn’t know he had one…”

That was an open wound she hadn’t wanted to prod. “My niece?”

Steve sat quietly across the table, unmoving save for the quiet sigh he breathed. “I know it sounds weird…”

“Just a little,” she snapped, pushing herself away from the table restlessly as she jerked up her breakfast things, inexplicably angry at all of it. “I mean...perhaps some random stranger, but…”

“It wasn’t as if I had planned it!” A hint of defensiveness crept in, just held in check. “Sharon was a SHIELD agent, she didn’t even use her real name when I met her. She was assigned to tail me. I thought she was a nurse named Kate, at first, at least that was the cover she gave me.”

Steve had always been horrible at intrigue and espionage. “And when did you find out she was my niece.” She spun to glare at him, leaning against the kitchen sink.

He stilled, pale, something brittle passing briefly on his expression. “Not for another couple of years. She was...she spoke at your funeral. That’s how I found out you two were related.”

“And you thought what, that her last name is Carter, so she obviously is your type?”

“No,” he shot back, raggedly. “Look, Peggy, this was years ago for me…”

“But I’m just finding out about it.” She had to process, had to sort through this. Without another word, she pushed forward, making for the door and her purse, coat and hat, slamming the last one on while she scrambled for the other two.

“Where are you going?” He had wandered into the living room, watching her as she did it, making no further effort to stop her.

“Out,” she snapped, unsure why she was even so angry about all of this and not clear why it even mattered.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“No,” she shot back, storming out of the screen door and into the fine, autumn morning. The red and orange leaves across the lawn crunched and rustled under her feet as Steve followed to stand on the step, saying nothing as she started the car. That was how she left him, and now as she meandered through New Jersey, she gnawed on her anger and resentment, the flare of jealousy at a woman who wasn’t even born yet, and the strange, weird, brain-bending guilt of it all. This was all so mad, so utterly confusing and somewhat ridiculous, and she couldn’t even begin to articulate why she was feeling the way she was except that that she felt it.

Peggy had not really planned on showing up at Howard’s, except she had no one else to really talk to about all of this. Frankly, few knew the true nature of Steve’s return and of those, Howard was the only one who actually understood it. Heaven knew she didn’t in the moment. So it was she drove across the river to his current mansion when he was in residence in New York, an elegant townhome that had once belonged to one of the Rockefellers, of a sort that one barely found in New York anymore. She had barely put the car into park in the drive of his spacious home when the door opened and Mr. Jarvis stepped out, politely perplexed as she clambered out.

“Miss Carter! We weren’t expecting you.” There was a world of quiet worry and solicitude in his polite words and she found something hopelessly comforting in it, a ghost of a memory of another life.

“No, Mr. Jarvis, this is unexpected. Howard wouldn’t be about, would he?”

As always, ruefulness simmered just under the cool veneer of discretion Jarvis maintained. “I’m afraid Mr. Stark is not. He had an early morning business meeting downtown.”

“Was the business meeting blonde or brunette?”

“Red haired this time, I believe.” A smirk flickered as he turned to open the door and ushered her in. “Ana is not here, so you’ll have to make do with me.”

“If there is tea involved, you’ll hear no complaints.” A true, genuine smile lifted her spirits as she followed Howard’s butler through the formal front room and into the back areas where the kitchen was. The cook eyed them archely as they entered, but Jarvis ignored her as he took Peggy’s coat and hat politely.

“Tea for Miss Carter, Mrs. Naismith, if you please.”

The woman bustled to do as she was asked, and Peggy realized she didn’t recognize this one. “Is she new?”

“Newer, yes. I had to let our last one go.”

“Pinching the silver again?”

“The grocery money this time. Mr. Stark entrusts me to keep to the household budget and I take that trust very seriously.”

“Oh, of course.” She grinned as she settled at the scrubbed and comfortable table, the scene of more than a few impromptu dinners with Howard and the Jarvises. The last had been just weeks ago, just after Steve Rogers arrived on her doorstep. She frowned at that thought, plucking at non-existant lint on her skirt as Jarvis bustled about and gathered things for a spot of impromptu tea. While it was now lunchtime, she found she could use at least with a steadying cuppa and someone to talk to.

He carried a silver tray, replete with a smaller tea service to the table, expertly going about the rituals he likely knew by heart. “How do you take it?”

“With a bit of lemon, that’s all.” She watched him expertly pour, something comforting and familiar in the action, like her mother’s parlour growing up. He passed her a fine bone china cup and saucer, delicate to the point of translucence. He poured for himself, one sugar and a drop of cream, before settling across from her, eyeing her over the teapot.

“Are you quite all right, Miss Carter?”

While Jarvis was lacking, perhaps, in the finer arts of espionage and spywork, he was exceedingly talented in carefully worded meanings. Peggy suppossed he had to be in his profession. “Mostly fine, yes. Just...a bit of news I hadn’t been expecting.”

“I see. Regarding Captain Rogers?”

She nodded, studying her cup and the neat slice of lemon floating near the top of the golden liquid. Jarvis sipped his own thoughtfully for a moment before excusing himself to wander to the cook, carefully dismissing her for a break in quiet tones. She said nothing as she nodded, a sympathetic expression on her thin face as she stepped out of the kitchen, leaving them both to their tea and biscuits and quiet conversation.

“So, then, Miss Carter,” Jarvis was all business as he settled again. “What tempest as formed in your teacup?”

That was a way of putting it, she thought mildly. “I fear, Mr. Jarvis, I might have started this tempest and now I’m rueing the fact that I did.”

“As you know, I’m not particularly one to judge, especially considering my employer.”

At that, Peggy did laugh. “Oh, Mr. Jarvis, this is so much more mad than anything Howard could concoct, and I know that is saying a great deal.” She toyed with her teaspoon, stirring the lemon around idylly.

“Well, if it involves Captain Rogers, whose exploits I only know a portion of, I can imagine it’s truly extraordinary indeed.”

“This one takes the cake,” she muttered, deciding to just spill it out to him, as tawdry as it sounded. “I decided to tell Steve about Daniel Sousa.”

“Ah,” he nodded his dark head. “How did he take it?”

“Better than I would have guessed. I know it wasn’t easy, but three years...and I thought he was dead.”

“So he was understanding, then?”

“Oh, very.” Much more than she had been. She glowered. “So, in the interest of fair play, I suppose, he shared his own experience.”

Up went Jarvis’ eyebrows on his thin face, nearly to his hairline. “Oh, did he?”

“Yes, he did. I suppose, like myself, he felt he should clear the air.”

“I see and is that what has caused your tempest?”

Fitfully, she pushed her tea away. “Apparently, he had taken up with my own niece.”

That caused a clatter as Jarvis’ delicate tea cup half fell into its saucer. “Pardon?”

Oh, it sounded just as horrible saying it as hearing it. “My niece...well, great niece as it were, I suppose, but still, Harry’s future daughter.”

Bless Jarvis, he merely blinked as he tried to absorb the information, trying to take it all in stride. “If I understand you correctly, Captain Rogers admitted to you that he had a relationship in the future with your own young nephew’s as-yet-unborn daughter?”

“Yes,” she muttered, a headache forming behind her eyes.

“Well,” Jarvis sighed, setting down his tea and pondering the situation, even his composure struggling to stay together as he tried to work this one out. “Admittedly, this is a unique situation.”

“Unique is a word.”

“My understanding of physics and time is rudimentary at best, and mostly from Mr. Stark’s ramblings on the subject, but I imagine that while one can break it down in a theoretical sense, the practicalities of it sometimes leave...somewhat to be desired.”

“Somewhat, indeed.”

Still, Jarvis was thoughtful as he picked up a biscuit, fiddling with it briefly. “You know, I have to say I’m somewhat sorry for him in all this.”

Not that there wasn’t a reason to be, but Peggy still found Jarvis’ statement surprising. “Why?”

“Well, because I try to imagine what it must have been like for him, having been on the radio with you, planning an appointment he knew would never be, facing his expected death, only to wake up again and realize that he hadn’t died, just that the world had moved on without him in it. Everyone and everything he had ever known and loved, gone in an instant as far as he was concerned.”

Logically, she had realized that this was indeed the situation from Steve’s perspective, even if she hadn’t truly considered it and what it meant. Now she did and the horror of it left her feeling somewhat sick. “I suppose it’s not unlike a horrible accident, that, waking up and realizing that you lived and they all died.”

“Quite,” Jarvis murmured, nibbling at the biscuit and setting it in his saucer, only to pick up his tea. “It must have been a tremendous shock. Did he mention if anyone he knew had survived into the future?”

“Well, his best friend did, but that is a whole other story.” That was a situation that had rocked herself, Howard, and Phillips, the combined knowledge of HYDRA’s betrayal and Barnes’ survival and torture at their hands. Already, they had mustered operatives into the field to find out what they could. In the meantime…

“Very few of the rest of us survived from what I understand. I mean, after all, seventy years, any of us who did would be quite old.”

“Including yourself?”

She eyed him sidelong but nodded. “Yes, including myself. He’s told me very little, but I lived to be that old. I lived to see him come back. He mentioned a funeral this morning, how he connected with her.”

Jarvis hummed softly, going very still. “That had to be so very hard, burying you like that. I know with Ana…”

He drifted for a moment, a rare welling of emotions rising to the surface, the memory of Ana’s own near death experience still fresh in all of their minds. Peggy waited, patiently allowing him space to pull himself together, remembering how broken he had been at that moment. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, then continued.

“I am simply saying that for a man who had lost everything, your loss had to be a great blow indeed. Small wonder he gravitated to someone else who likely felt that blow in their life.”

When placed like that, perhaps then it did make a strange sort of sense. She hadn’t asked about this niece, Sharon, or what her relationship to this future woman had been like. “He did mention she was a SHIELD agent, which I suppose means she got the notion from me. Perhaps, in that timeline and that future, we were close.”

“Given the circumstances of your nephew’s life, I can’t imagine you not being close to him and his family. And, I can see that for a young woman who perhaps grew up in your shadow, SHIELD would look like a promising and adventurous career, one that would allow her to follow in the footsteps of a beloved aunt. Chances are high she likely grew up on stories of Captain Rogers as well, if you were involved in her life at all. I can see, from a certain perspective, how two people broken hearted at the loss of a figure as important in their lives as you would gravitate to one another in such circumstances.”

Unfortunately, she could too. “Are you trying to make me okay with this?”

“I am merely trying to lay out another perspective on what is already a complex situation. That’s all.”

“You missed your calling, Mr. Jarvis. You’d have made a decent barrister.”

“I’m not overly fond of wigs, I’m afraid. Miss Carter, are you more upset that it was your niece or that it was anyone at all?”

She blinked at Jarvis, shrugging as she pondered it, realizing she didn’t really know for certain. “Both, I suppose. Really, it is just the knowledge that this is a woman that, perhaps someday if things work out right, might exist, my own flesh and blood, knowing that there is a whole other history he had with her, one she will be ignorant of and I will have to figure out how to ignore it.”

“So, you are at least planning on there being a future where there is both you and Captain Rogers and a potential future niece in it?”

She supposed she was. “Right now, the possibility is open, despite it all.”

He hummed, tugging on his waistcoat as he straightened. “You know, Ana was with another man before she met me. Was madly in love with him as a matter of fact.”

Peggy hadn’t known that. The Jarvises were so in love, an unlikely couple who were so devoted to one another, it made Peggy’s heart hurt sometimes just looking at them. The idea that there had been anyone else other than Edwin seemed preposterous to her. “Whatever happened to him?”

“Ah, well, he’d been her teenage sweetheart, from what I gather, a boy in the shop she worked in. She had been rather mad for him and he for her, but the war happened and he left to join the army and she moved on with her life.”

“And she met you.” Peggy smiled, knowing their story well.

Jarvis blushed. “She is still fond of him, you know. I suppose she always will be. After all, they grew up together. They still are in contact. He fled to England after the war and they write to each other often. But I keep coming back to the fact that in the end that she chose me and I have faith in that. ”

It was so achingly sweet and so very them. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Perhaps it is, for us. I know nothing about this situation for you and Captain Rogers is normal, and the idea that he might have romantically been linked to your own niece is unorthodox, but I would like to politely put it to you that while he may have been drawn to her in a different time and different place, when given the chance and the choice, he took both and decided to come back home to you. You were who he chose and there is something powerful and beautiful in that.”

He had chosen her, hadn’t he? Through all of space and time, he had chosen to return to her.

“You are a very good friend, Mr. Jarvis.” She didn’t tell him that very often.

Her compliment clearly pleased him as he flushed, faintly. “Well, I imagine I’m the only other person you know who can make a decent cup of tea.”

“This is also very true.” She laughed, picking up her now tepid cup and downing the rest. Even lukewarm it was good. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with it.”

“No one said you had to be, but you can move past it. And someday, if young Harrison has a daughter who happens to be the same woman, well, remember that she looked up to you enough to follow you into SHIELD.”

She would have to keep that in mind. “I can never tell her the truth, of course.”

“I wouldn’t advise it, no.” He made a small moue of disapproval, finishing his cup. “More tea?”

“No,” she sighed, thinking of Steve standing on the front step of her tiny house, quiet and confused. “Well, at least this time I only drove off in a fit of frustration. The last time I did this, I shot at him.”

That stopped Jarvis in the middle of gathering her cup, his long form hovering over the table as he blinked at her, mildly. “You shot at him?”

Peggy couldn’t help the hint of impishness as she nodded with just a bit of a smirk. “We found out his shield worked.”

Jarvis merely swallowed, straightening to place her dish on the tray. “Miss Carter, please remind me to never cross you when there is a weapon at hand?”

“Mr. Jarvis, how many times have I saved you because I had a weapon at hand?”

“Yes, but I was on your side.” He only shook his head with a long-suffering sigh, but she could see the smile he tried to hide all the same. “Shall I tell Mr. Stark that you called?”

“If you wish, though I have a feeling he may be all day with these business meetings?”

“Perhaps, he’s rather interested in her assets, and I don’t mean that as a double entendre.” He carried the tray into the kitchen to set it down before retrieving her coat and hat. He handed them to her, helping her into the former as she took the later in hand. “Might I say, Miss Carter, that despite all of this entire mad situation with Captain Rogers and time travel, it is rather good to have him here.”

“Why is that, Mr. Jarvis?” She adjusted her hat on top of her dark curls.

“When you aren’t busy being angry with him, it’s good to see you happy.” He smiled, passing her the purse she had left in the chair beside her. “And whatever he faced in the future, whatever hardships he had, I think you make it worthwhile for him as well.”

Perhaps, in the end, that was enough. The rest would sort itself out, even affairs of the heart with as-yet unborn nieces.

She meandered back home, pulling in just as the late afternoon sun was slanting lower in the sky, the sunlight molten gold through the changing leaves. She sighed heavily, wandering up the concrete path to the door, half expecting Steve to be on the other side, frantic with worry. To her surprise, he wasn’t, though sitting on the dining room table was a bouquet of autumn flowers, a riot of dark reds and oranges, lovely and adding color to the space. She bent to touch a yellow chrysanthemum before smelling a lily, then turned to look for the erstwhile captain. Her steps took her to the backyard, where he sat in one of the chairs, his head bent over his ever-present sketchpad, facing the molten sun between the fiery trees. She stopped on the back steps, watching him as he worked, remember the long ago days in the field in Europe where he would sit by the fire and do the same, as intent and focused on this as he often was in strategy meetings.

“I’m sorry!” She didn’t even bother saying hello, blurting the words out into the rustling stillness, breaking his steadfast concentration. He turned, eyeing her over his left shoulder, a smudge of coal pencil along the side of his nose.

“For what?” He closed the sketch book, sliding the pencil inside of it as he rose to meet her, the golden hair on top of his head catching in the brilliant light. Despite the years, more than ten for him, he was still the most breathtakingly beautiful man she had ever seen.

“For...losing my temper. For storming out.”

“It’s better than shooting at me. After all, my shield is gone, how would I protect myself?”

That earned a huff of laughter as she shook her head. “We do have the strangest stories, don’t we?”

“It makes life interesting.” 

He stopped in front of her. Tall as he was now, she almost forgot that once he stood nearly a head shorter than she did. She stared down at him from her perch on the step, reaching out to wipe at the smudge on his nose affectionately. “I haven’t looked down on you like this since the day you took that blasted serum. Where would we be if you had never taken it?”

“Me? I probably would be skulking around Brooklyn, brooding over my fate and getting beat up in theater alleys. I certainly would never have gotten into the army, never would have been Captain America...never would have met you.”

She smiled, leaning in to kiss him, his lips meeting hers eagerly as she fell into him, his long, strong arms wrapping around her waist, pulling her completely off the step to swing her around briefly. It earned a giggle, a peel of childish laughter as she pulled away, holding on tightly before he set her down gently back on the step.

“I’m sorry too, for what it’s worth.” Despite the smile on his lips now smeared with faint red, his summer blue eyes were grave. “I had just wanted to be honest with you about what happened. I didn’t want to hide an uncomfortable truth from someone I care for. I did that once and it destroyed a friendship. It nearly destroyed everything.”

“I know.” She sighed, reaching up to wipe at the lipstick on his mouth. “And honestly, how did you know you would ever get the chance to come back. I just...wish it wasn’t with my great niece.”

“Me too, now.” He chuckled, kissing her thumb briefly before letting her go. “Sharon...despite how it sounds, things never really moved beyond a brief kiss and mutual respect with her. I don’t want you to think…”

“It’s in the past, darling.” She wrinkled her nose as the true confusion of those words hit her. “Well, it’s in your past, in another timeline, another lifetime.”

He smiled, ever so faintly. “She was...will be, I guess, an amazing woman. She wasn’t you, but she loved you. She looked up to you. I think that’s what brought us together, the fact we both cared for you so much. No one else got it.”

“I know.” She couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him, a young man seeing her as old, frail, and dying. Worse still, the idea of him burying her, losing one of those last, precious links to his past. She cupped his face, sadly. “What you had to go through.”

He shrugged, cavalier, though she knew that it all had cost him so much. “In the end, it worked out all right. I got a second chance and I took it. I got you.”

“But it wasn’t easy..” She sighed. In the weeks since he had returned they had spoken somewhat of his experiences, of the friends he’d made and the ones he’d lost. “I’m glad you had someone there, then, when you needed it.”

He loosed a long breath through his nose, a sigh that tickled the inside of her wrist before turning to press a kiss to it, briefly. “I am sorry I dropped it on you, though. I hope the flowers helped.”

“Mmmm, they might have softened me up a bit,” she grinned. “I thought you didn’t know anything about women.”

His smile was the lopsided, self-deprecating one he had, both shy and knowing of his own faults. “Natasha taught me that it helps in tense negotiations to bring gifts.”

“Ahh, well, this Natasha was clearly a wise woman. Glad she taught you a thing or two.”

“Me too,” he replied, with just a hint of sadness before pulling her towards him again. “Me too.”

So it was that decades later, when Harrison Carter, now a grown man with a family, came by his favorite aunt and uncle’s house with his youngest daughter to introduce her, he was completely puzzled that neither of them could stop laughing at the situation. He never did get a straight answer out of either of them. Uncle Steve had refused to speak of it and Aunt Peggy had said simply that it was far too mad to explain. And if they took to spoiling his youngest child rotten, who was he to say anything against it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The germ of this story came from D23 and an interview with Hayley Atwell regarding what she imagined Peggy's reaction to Steve telling her about Sharon would be. It was all rather cute and this story more or less sprung out of it.
> 
> I have some ideas percolating regarding Steve, his return to Peggy, of the fate of Michael Carter and how he has a family, and perhaps a couple of stories, but I am only in the outlining stages of these stories. I will prod them further when I get a bit more time in my rather hectic schedule.


	26. On The Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Howard demands to know why he had to bail Peggy and Angie out of trouble.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Peggy cut off Howard’s question before he even asked it.

Howard looked as if he were torn between fatherly disappointment and schoolboy glee. At the moment, glee seemed to be winning. “I had to just bail you and your girlfriends out of the pokey before the SSR got wind of it and you aren’t even going to repay my generosity by explaining the situation?”

“No,” she snapped, throwing herself on the silk-covered sofa, groaning as she propped up her bruised knee and studied the broken heel on one of her best pairs of shoes.

“You owe me, Carter!”

“I got you out of a treason charge, I think I owe you nothing!”

“Miss Carter is right, sir, without her work in clearing your name…” Jarvis began in his inimitable way, only to have Howard cut him off ruthlessly, holding up a hand to silence him with a dark glare.

“I think Miss Martinelli and Miss Maida might need an assist. Angie looks as if she went twelve rounds with LaMotta.”

Jarvis relented only because he had seen both women when they had been released from police custody. “I’ll just go get them some ice, then. You’ll let me know if you need anything, Miss Carter?”

“Of course,” she smiled tightly at her friend as he gave the smallest of nods and exited towards the kitchens at Howard’s bidding. In the meantime, his employer paced the area by the ornate fireplace, eyeing Peggy as if she were a wayward teenager who had disappointed him yet again.

“Howard, do stop! It’s annoying and I have a headache.”

“Too much booze does that, I hear.”

“Oh, stop!” She glared at him as he finally threw himself into a far chair, petulant. “What are you upset about, that you had to expend a favor on bailing us out or that you weren’t included in the fun to begin with?”

“Both,” he shot back, smirking. “Had you invited me in on the scheme, I might have prevented you all having a brawl in the Copacabana.”

“It wasn’t a brawl.”

“Tell that to Angie’s face!”

Peggy could only rub her temples and wish she could go to bed. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything. Angie’s cousin, Lizzie, was up from Philadelphia for the weekend. She just finished high school and Angie thought it would be a nice treat, have a real, New York night on the town.”

“All the more reason you should have asked me. I could have shown her something.”

“Like I’d let you near an innocent girl of eighteen.”

“Sister, if she’s an innocent kid just out of the schoolroom, than I’m an upstate rube. I know my coquettes and she eyed me like a piece of prime New York strip the minute she stepped out of the hoosegow.”

Unfortunately, in this, Howard was absolutely right. Angie had been so excited her younger cousin would be visiting. She hadn’t seen her in five years, not since she was still just a child, and she wanted to show her all the sights and give her a New York experience. Neither she nor Peggy had been prepared for the girl who had waltzed into the living room of Howard’s spare townhome, lighting up cigarettes and suggesting openly the reason for their spacious residence had been due to the connection between Angie and the notorious womanizer.

“You know, Lizzie thinks we are living here because Angie is your current mistress.”

That amused Howard to no end. “Angie would have my head on one of those waitressing trays first, and don’t think I didn’t try, because I did.”

“Oh, I remember.” Angie had given him hell for the suggestion, hardly phasing Howard. Peggy rubbed her temples, trying to even recall how it all began. “It was innocent enough. Drinks, maybe a bit of dancing, nothing more, and then home early, safe and sound.”

“Sounds positively dull,” Howard muttered, flinging himself into the chair opposite. “Doesn’t explain why police were called.”

“Well, things got out of hand.” It had started out all right, the three of them, dressed to the nines, Lizzie in her first really grown up dress and trying so very hard to be as adult as the other two women. “Angie went to order some drinks, Lizzie went with her. Next thing I know, Angie’s giving hell to some man who was getting fresh with her cousin, Lizzie protested he was asking her for a dance, and he may have tried to force the issue.”

“And this jerk is the one who hit Angie?” Howard sounded in equal parts angry and horrified. Cad he may be, but there was also a certain level of gentleman in Howard Stark, buried deep down in there.

“No, but she did haul off and slap him. I didn’t make out what he had said to cause that reaction, but I tried to get over to diffuse the situation, but he’d made a grab for Lizzie, Angie pushed him off and sent him into a woman whose drink got spilled right down her front. Her date punched the first man. Lizzie said some rather shocking things that I didn’t expect to come out of a Catholic schoolgirl’s mouth, the woman went to slap her and got Angie instead and then...well, there was the rest.”

Howard could only sit there, blinking wide, dark eyes at her. “So where do we get to the point where you took down two of Freddy Maggiore’s boys down with your shoe?”

That had been the extra fun bit of this whole story. “That was the boyfriend of the woman who assaulted Angie. He and a few others were there and Lizzie’s big mouth caught their attention. One of the other goons wanted to drag her off, so I conveniently came up and knocked him over the head with my shoe.”

“Instead of reasoning with him?”

Peggy refused to be apologetic about it. “Didn’t have that sort of time, and honestly, they didn’t strike me as the type to reason with a woman.”

He sighed, wearily, conceding to her observations in that. “Probably not and I do suppose it’s better than whipping out a gun and threatening them.”

“That was under my skirts, the shoe was more convenient and discreet.”

Howard only blinked at her. “Of course you’d have a gun up your skirts.”

It was as if he hadn’t known her for years. “Anyway, things quickly got out of hand as people began inserting themselves in, a full on rumble started for no discernable reason that I can tell other then men felt the need to start beating on each other, and there was Lizzie Maida in the middle of it, screaming at her cousin and crying everywhere. That’s when the police showed up.”

“You should have just pulled your badge and claimed it was SSR business.”

“What and have to deal with Jack Thompson in all of this? Far better to call you and handle it discreetly. Besides, you do owe me.”

“As you’ve repeated now several times in the course of this conversation.” His acerbic glare hardly phased her as she smiled primly. “Right, well the cops are easy enough, I can cover any fines and hush it up. And I’m friends with the gang at the Copa, I’m sure they can keep the society pages hushed up.”

“And Maggiore’s boys? I’m sure they won’t take too kindly to being beaten up by a woman.”

“That’s the exact reason they won’t come looking, because who wants to admit they got beaten up by a woman? I’ll put a call or two in to my old contacts, anyway, make sure the discreetly suggest that they let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Thank you,” she sighed, leaning back into the chair, finally feeling the weariness of the long night and insane situation catch up to her. “Despite it all, Howard, you are a true and loyal friend.”

“That I am and I hope you remember that whenever you are yelling at me.”

“I’m often yelling at you for being an idiot, which usually you have been.”

“True but you could be nicer yelling at me.”

She regarded his petulance with bemused apology. “All right, that is fair, I could be nicer about it.”

“Thank you.” He reminded her very much of a child, sulking in his sprawl across the fine, antique chair. “Just keep that in mind next time I threaten national security.”

Peggy could only snort, wondering when her life became so utterly mad. “ _Lah_ , Angie’s cousin! The gall of that girl, wandering in here acting as if she belonged in a Barbara Stanwick movie.”

“Barbara is far more classy than that,” Howard grumbled.

Peggy ignored him. “She is barely out of bobby socks, whipping out cigarettes and low cut dresses and flirting with men twice her age. Neither of us were that bad at that age.” 

She paused, considering him, circumspect. “I should amend that to I wasn’t that bad at that age.”

“Hey, I was a teenage boy with a pocketful of money and a head full of ideas then, dames threw themselves at me!” He hardly looked apologetic.

“I’m sure it didn’t hurt that you were handsome and a practiced liar to boot?”

“See, there you go, being mean to me, Peg! I am charming! I say things which others may take a certain way, even if it’s ambiguous, and it’s not my fault if they take the wrong meaning.”

She rolled her eyes in disgust. “You really are hopeless.”

“Hey, it helped me survive the Lower East Side as a kid and got me out of the poor house and into this rather nice one you happen to be living in at the moment. Not to mention it got you out of a jam last night.”

“All very true,” she conceded, though she wished he weren’t right on that. “When I was her age the worst thing I had done was steal the headmaster’s wife’s knickers and a bottle of his best brandy.”

That caught Howard’s attention. “Seriously?” He grinned. “Margaret Carter, you rebel!”

“Hush, you.” She smirked, throwing a soft and plush pillow at his head. He ducked, swatting it away with a laugh. “I certainly wasn’t causing a riot at a nightclub. I was at Bletchley by that point. We were at war and everyone was in the thick of it.”

That sobered Howard somewhat as he settled once again. “Yeah, I had already left MIT and was putting my company together. Guess it was a different time, then. Depression, war, forced a lot of us to grow up early. Kids coming up now don’t have to worry about those things.”

It hit Peggy as Howard spoke that they were sounding alarmingly...well, old. “Have we really become the type of people who sit and complain about kids today?”

Howard blinked, mildly alarmed by her suggestion. “Hey, you started it!”

“I know, but listen to the pair of us, whinging about an eighteen-year-old and how it wasn’t like that in our day?”

Mild horror flickered over Howard’s face. “I do turn thirty next year. Maybe this is the start of it. First, I start complaining about the music they listen to and the clothes they wear, next thing you know I’m balding and gray and complaining about how my wife and kids are spending all my money and bleeding me dry.”

“Is that what you see your future as?” Frankly, she couldn’t see Howard married, let alone having children.

“Maybe...not for a while yet.”

“You’re turning thirty next year and you aren’t thinking of settling down?”

“As we have established, that path leads to gray hair and headaches, so no.” He ran a hand over his still very dark and very full coif. “I just don’t want to think of us getting, you know, old.”

In her more honest moments, neither did Peggy. “Well, it is as you say, we were in the middle of a depression and war. Fighting for our lives and hunting down HYDRA rather did make us all grow up much faster than Lizzie Maida has had to. Maybe that’s the point, she sees the lot of us all grown up and series and not that much older than she is and she is trying a bit too hard to do the same.”

After all, she quietly reminded herself, she was only twenty-five, barely out of her own girlhood and yet she felt so much older. Living through life-and-death situations, the literal fate of the world resting in their hands, that tended to make a person grow up rather quickly. She had saved people’s lives, and she had lost them too, in painful ways. She had been betrayed cruelly by those she trusted most and she had also found unerring loyalty in the unlikeliest of places. She had her heart broken and she’d put that back together, hobbling and stumbling forward till she could move on again. She had forced her way into a man’s world, kicking in the door and putting up with their antipathy and harassment till she made a place for herself there, and she would continue to do so. In the face of all that, it was small wonder that despite the slim eight years that separated them, Peggy felt as if she were eighty years older than Angie’s cousin, Lizzie.

“I hate being the responsible one,” Howard moped, burying his head in the pillow she had tossed at him.

She only laughed quietly at him. “Never fear, I don’t think you will have to bear that burden for long.”

Down the hallway, Peggy could hear Angie coming, all Italian rant and bluster as she stormed into the sitting room. “Of all the ungrateful little...honestly, I wish I had never invited her! When her mother gets wind of this! I was never like her at this age, irresponsible, reckless, thoughtless…”

Peggy could only snicker silently as she slid eyes over to Howard staring at Angie over his pillow, pressing it so hard against his laughter his face turned red. Perhaps they were getting old indeed.


	27. A Different Course of Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy makes a choice that changes everything

Peggy had done many insane things over the years, but she had done nothing this mad ever before..

In the end, once the decision was made, it had been simple to execute. Howard had taken it hard, torn between sorrow at losing one of his closest friends and envy at what she was about to do. Edwin and Ana had mourned she would be gone, Ana throwing herself impulsively at Peggy's neck and refusing to let go. It had been no better when she’d gone to see Angie, telling her only that she would be away on a mission, one she may not come back from, which had broken her friend’s heart and had led to the two of them crying in front of the automat as if their hearts would break. She’d written a note to Philips, unwilling to explain to him why she was doing what she was, and a comprehensive letter to her mother which Howard had promised he would deliver personally. She’d set her affairs in order, laid out her plans and vision for SHIELD, for her hopes for the future, quietly ceding leadership to Philips, Howard and Daniel, hoping the three of them would make it all work out just fine.

That complete, she woke early the next morning after a mostly sleepless night, contemplating how she could walk away from this life she had built for herself. She’d gone from the schoolroom into a war, from the comfort of her parents’ home to America, from being a code breaker at Bletchley to helping to build up one of the first international intelligence agencies. She’d fled the ashes of her ruined country to build a life and respectability for herself in this new country and for not the first time since the idea hit her, she wondered if she could do it, leave it all behind to face the unknown.

Peggy rose, gathering her old, US Army issued rucksack, wandering her flat for the things she knew she’d never be parted with; photos from her youth, her grandmother’s jewelcase, her favorite shade of lipstick, a manila folder filled with clippings from the newspaper about Captain America. She packed slowly and methodically, fitting her favorite red dress at the bottom, tucking precious items between folds of clothes, more durable items in pockets outside, remembering her hairbrush and her favorite pair of socks. She packed all the contents of a lifetime in one bag. She hoped it would be enough.

That completed, she dressed carefully, much as she had out in the field. Dark clothes, practical slacks, sturdy shoes, pulling her hair back to tuck it neatly out of her face. She strapped her favorite weapon to her hip, but perhaps she did slip another one on her thigh, just in case. In reality, she probably needed none of them, but she would rather have them now than be sorry later she lacked them.

Thus armored, she made the bed, more out of habit than anything. She calculated everything she had, making sure she left nothing of import. Convinced she had not, she finally opened her bedroom door to wander out, her mouth dry, her heart beating a steady tattoo in her chest, a rhythm that left her light headed. She would be fine, she told herself, despite her unsteady knees. It would be all right. She made this decision knowing full well what it would mean. She could do this.

“Coffee?” The mug floated in front of her face and she blinked at it, then up the arm of the man who presented it to her and the familiar but different red, white and blue uniform. She nearly fainted at Steve’s smiling face, but settled for nodding and taking it from him, ignoring her trembling fingers.

“Thanks,” she whispered, gripping it like a lifeline.

His eyes, so tender, held understanding as he nodded, wandering back into her tiny kitchen to pour a cup for himself. “I suppose on the other side we could run and get some, but I thought you would like to steady your nerves.”

“Yes,” she gasped, swallowing a large, scalding mouthful, wishing it was tea and knowing that they didn't have the time for it and that Steve was horrible at making it. The hot liquid burned but it steadied her as she sipped it, noting it tasted far better than anything she herself made. “This is not so bad.”

“Not as good as what I have made before, but pretty good. I learned from a barista how to make a good cup. I was fascinated how much better coffee tasted then.” He smiled, sipping from his own. “Of course, that was partly because I was used to whatever it was Dugan thought he brewed and called coffee.”

“The black dreck that could take paint of the walls?” She chuckled, remembering all too well the cold nights in Central Europe, quaffing that and being glad only that it was hot and plentiful, not that it was good. “I’ll miss him, you know.”

“I know.” His expression was grim. While he didn’t look much older than he had when she saw him last, she knew he was, and in that moment she could see hints of the experiences he had lived there, the losses, the regrets, and sorrows. But it cleared as he regarded her, softening his face till he looked no older than the man who stepped out of Howard’s machine years ago, the foolish kid from Brooklyn who had agreed to Abraham Erskine’s experiment. “Are you sure?”

“No,” she responded honestly, tears filming her eyes. “I’m not. I have no idea what any of this will do, what sort of legacy I will leave behind, what sort I will build. I just know that I tried living without you once. Perhaps a different me succeeded. I am just horribly selfish and don’t want to.”

He could only smile at that, regarding his own cup. “I’ll be honest, I was horribly selfish in coming here in the first place. I guess that makes two of us.”

“I suppose we will be horribly selfish together.” There was comfort in that. Not much, but some.

They finished their coffees. He rinsed out the mugs and cleaned out the pot, much to Peggy’s amusement, but as he said he didn’t want to leave a mess. While he did, she wandered through her life one last time, everything that she had lived up to this point. In a moment or two it would all be gone and she would have to start over. That was all right, she supposed. She had done it before.

“You ready?” Steve stood in the kitchen door, drying his hands on a dishtowel, determination steeling his shoulders, the firm aura of command surrounding him. It gave her comfort as she nodded, turning from yesterday’s newspaper, nodding as she did. She took a deep breath, standing in her living room, remembering this time and place, saying goodbye to it, preparing to say hello to something else.

Steve’s fingers wrapped quietly around hers. “I’m right here and I always will be. I’m not going anywhere anymore.”

She tightened her own around his. “I know.”

Steve raised her hand to his lips, brushing her knuckles briefly, his other hand fumbling in one of his side pockets. He pulled out what looked like a wrist watch, slipping it easily over her hand, matching the one he had on his own. Peggy blinked at it. Such an innocuous thing to change her entire world.

“What is it?” She waited as he patiently fiddled with it.

“Tony called it a time and space GPS, basically a way you can move through both and reach specific positions.” His long fingers pressed a button on the side. As if by magic, the standard black outfit she was wearing suddenly became surrounded by a white one, looking strange and outlandish to her eyes.

“How?” Her eyes were wide as she stared up at his laughing ones.

“Nanotechnology. I wish I could explain it more, and I’m sure someone else will, but suffice it to say that it’s real and not magic.” He pointed to a spot at her waist. “This is where we put the Pym Particles.”

“The element you use to power all of this?”

“Right.” He reached back into the same pocket, pulling out a vial, a red liquid visible inside. “When I tell you to press the large white button on the watch, you do so. It will activate this liquid and then you’ll shrink into the quantum realm. The watch will do the rest, taking you to the time I’ve set on here.”

This was madness, utter and complete madness, and yet she was going through with this. “All right, let me just load up my things.”

Her rucksack felt like it weighed a million pounds as she slipped it on. Steve eyed it with remembered fondness. “This the same one you had on campaign?”

“The very same and I doubt anything in the future will be nearly as durable.”

“Nope,” he laughed, helping her adjust it to strap around her, keeping it secure as they went on this madness, checking the flap and all the pockets. Once it was set, he carefully reached to the compartment at her waist, slipping in the vial with its red fluid. Peggy felt it snap in firmly.

“All set,” he sighed just beside her ear, straightening with an expression as serious as she had ever seen Steve Rogers. “You have time now to back out of this. I mean, I suppose in theory we could bring you back if you change your mind, but I’d rather not have to meddle with timelines any further.”

“No,” she assured him, tilting her chin with as much defiance as she could muster. “No, I can do this. Let’s just go before I lose my nerve.”

“All right.” He looked as if he were trying to reassure himself more than her. He leaned down briefly, brushing warm lips against hers, so quick she didn’t have a chance to respond. “Let’s do this.”

He straightened, pressing his own device. Over his familiar uniform a similar nanotechnology suit formed, covering the former from neck-to-toe, still baffling and amazing Peggy as she watched it. Once he secured his own vial into place, he tapped a button on the watch, a different one than the white one he had shown her.

“This is your helmet. Tap it and it will form around your head.” He did it and seemingly out of nowhere a sleek, otherworldly helmet formed around him, closing his face off through a wall of clear plastic.

Reaching to her own watch she found the spot and did the same. With a brief clicking noise it formed around her, distorting her vision as she stared around her apartment in wonder, then up at Steve. From somewhere inside, a radio system came to life, Steve’s voice echoing in the helmet.

“On your watch there is a big white button. When I say go, punch it.”

“Right,” she replied, nodding back at him. He held his wrist up in front of him and she did the same, her right index finger poised to push it at his signal.

“In five, four, three, two, one...go!”

Without hesitating for a breath, Peggy hit the button.

The entire world shrank down into nothingness.

She had a fleeting glimpse, an impression really, of everything expanding, becoming so much bigger as she fell, seemingly into an abyss. Around her, the world became little more than blue streams of light, tunnels of color, through which she hurtled. She believed Steve was there just in front of her, his long form streaking through reality itself.

And then it stopped.

Peggy had just blinked her eyes, willing her stomach with its coffee to stay still for just a moment and then she found herself standing, motionless. She swayed, but kept upright as beside her, a hand grasped hers. She guessed it was Steve.

Somewhere, beyond where she stood, a commotion had started. A familiar voice muttered, soft, low and amused. “You son-of-a-bitch!”

“Steve, what did you do?” That was another voice, unfamiliar to her, but sounding vaguely panicked.

Steve released her hand and Peggy finally opened her eyes onto a whole new world.

In truth, it didn’t look so different than the world she had left behind, at least not at first. They were somewhere with trees, a wooded area by a river. It looked as if spring had just given over to early summer, the leaves green and fresh in the golden light. In the distance she could see the remains of what looked like a large complex, bombed out and little more than rubble, oversized cranes and other construction vehicles there carting away the remains. She stood on a platform of steel and glass, hooked up to equipment that looked far different than anything she was used to in Howard’s lab. 

Standing watching them were three men, all blinking at her as if she were magic. The large green man behind all the equipment was the owner of the accusatory voice. His expression turned from shock to irritation at Steve, who was already leaping off the platform and lowering his helmet to calm him down. He was Bruce, as Peggy recalled, a scientist who had gotten in an accident trying to recreate Erskine’s formula. He was indeed huge, a giant of a man who dwarfed everyone, and he and Steve bickered as she turned to the other two. The handsome black man with the thin, well groomed beard simply blinked in confusion between Steve and herself, but it was the third man who made her stop short.

Slowly, she reached for her watch and lowered her helmet.

She took a deep breath and studied him, the long shaggy hair and somewhat mangy beard, the pale blue eyes, the insouciant grin pulling up his mouth, not disguising the lines of care, pain and aching loss that now marked his face. He was older in the same way Steve was, a man who had seen too much, who had suffered things beyond her wildest imagination, and who still stood on the other side despite it all.

Peggy wandered to the top of the platform steps, staring down at him, her throat tight with tears. “It’s so good to see you, Sergeant Barnes.”

As neatly as he had when she had last seen him in 1945, he sketched a salute to her, not as jaunty but so much more poignant. “And you too, Agent Carter.”

Without any further warning, she launched herself at him, rucksack and all, wrapping arms around his neck as she held him close, the poor man only just keeping a hold of her and keeping himself upright. She didn’t know why the sight of him made her sob, but it did, as she held on tightly, ignoring the scratch of his beard and the length if the hair that her fingers tangled in.

“Jesus, it’s...so, so good seeing you, Peg,” he whispered hoarsely in her ear.

“Can someone explain what’s going on here,” the black man called out in the clearing, drawing everyone’s attention with the sort of command Steve usually utilized. 

The large, green man glared at Steve. “I was wondering the same thing.”

Steve only looked to Bucky pointedly. For his part, he had finally let Peggy go, allowing her to find her feet in the soft grass, looking far from sorry about whatever Steve was implicating him in. “I just gave you a date and address, pal, I didn’t think you’d break timelines and bring her back.”

“Wait, you knew about this?” The black man glared at Bucky. “You knew about it and didn’t tell me?”

“Of course I knew about it! I had to sit with these two for years and watch them moon over each other. Steve had a means to go back and get a second chance, and I know him. He’d never take it without a push.”

The black man blinked, glancing at Steve’s blushing shrug and Bucky’s pleased face before finally resting on Peggy. “You mean this is that girl?”

Stories clearly had gotten around. “I’m twenty-seven, hardly a girl, Mister…”

“Wilson, Sam Wilson, but you can call me Sam.” There was something smooth and flirtatious there, a hint of humor not unlike Bucky’s back during the war. She could see why he would fit in with the pair of them. “And you are the famous Margaret Carter?”

“I am, though I didn’t know I was famous.”

“God damn it, Steve!” Bruce behind his equipment ran thick, blunt fingers through his graying hair. “Do you know what damage this might have caused?”

“Yes,” he replied, unapologetic. “I checked with the Ancient One as a matter of fact.”

That didn’t seem to allay Bruce’s anger. “And now there is a timeline where Peggy Carter doesn’t exist. Do you know how many lives she touched? Mine, Tony’s, Fury’s….”

“Just like there is now a timeline where Thanos is dead and can’t destroy the universe.” Steve met Bruce’s ire frankly. Peggy listened, confused, as she stared at the other two. 

Bucky clearly sensed a storm brewing as he gently grabbed her elbow, tugging her along. “Come on, Carter, let’s leave them to it. I have a feeling they will be a while.”

She wanted to stay and defend Steve and the decision. After all, it had been her choice to come back with him, but even Sam agreed to leave them to argue as they wandered from the clearing to the meandering river beyond. Peggy stared at the vista in vague wonderment.

“So this is the future?” She turned to regard Bucky who shrugged, sliding to sit on a bench perched overlooking the scene. Sam, for his part, leaned against the back, still watching her as if she was a ghost from another time.

“For what it’s worth, it’s pretty peaceful now, but a month ago there was a full on battle that made anything we saw back in the war look tame by comparison.” Bucky jerked his head to the rubble beyond, the sound of machinery faint in the distance. “Steve explain any of that?”

“He said something about aliens and gemstones.”

Sam snorted, nodding, his hands shoved in the front pockets of his light jacket. “Yeah, was just as crazy as it sounded hearing you saying it.”

This was all utter insanity and yet she couldn’t help but feel a thrill of excitement. This was new, a place where she could make a difference, where she could be respected for it without having to fight the uphill battles that she’d faced in the SSR. Perhaps this time they could build something stronger than SHIELD, better than it too. She was curious to meet this Nicholas Fury and discuss it with him.

“I can’t believe that Steve actually dragged you from the past to come here with him.” Sam sighed, glancing back to the pair still arguing in the distance. “Bruce is not going to be happy.”

Bucky was far more amused by it all. “I can believe he did it. What I can’t believe is that you agreed to it, Carter.”

She bit back the snort brewing at his cheeky smile. “Seems I’m always surprising you, Barnes. I lived nearly three years believing he was dead. I wasn’t going to lose my chance with him again.”

“I like a woman who knows her mind!” Sam was delighted as she settled on the bench beside Bucky. “Always heard stories about you, but seeing the real thing, I can see why he loves you.”

That made her cheeks flush as she fiddled with the watch, looking for the means to return the nanotechnology. “Is it that obvious.”

“It was always obvious,” Bucky grumbled loudly, without heat, turning up to Sam. “You seriously weren’t around them back in the day. It was disgusting.”

“Cap mooning over a girl is the most hysterical thing I’ve ever heard of. I didn’t think he knew what a woman was.”

“In fairness, he hasn’t known many, and none like Peggy.” Bucky’s face softened. “I always knew Steve would move heaven and earth for you, Carter, but I didn’t think he’d resort to time travel.”

“Me either,” she chuffed, still awed by what she had just done. “He has always been tenacious, especially in regards to coming for those he loves. You of all people should know that.”

That Bucky did, perhaps better than even she. “Guess we lucked out finding him, huh?”

“Guess we did.”

Whatever argument Steve had been having with Bruce, it clearly had resolved itself as he sauntered over to them, his nanotechnology suit now returned to whence it came.

“He going to be okay,” Sam asked in quiet concern, glancing back at Bruce who had busied himself, unhappily it seemed, with whatever was at the console.

“Eventually,” Steve replied as something quietly passed between the two of them, Sam nodding in silent agreement. There was a deal of trust built between the two and it warmed Peggy’s heart to see it. Steve might have lost everything, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out to others, to making differences in other people’s lives.

Sam turned his attention to her again with thoughtful bemusement. “So, your now in 2023, Agent Carter, 80 years from everything you used to know. What will you do?”

“I suppose that’s the next great question, isn’t it?” Her entire new life was ahead of her and she had so much of it to learn. “Certainly, I need to catch up to where you lot have gotten us all.”

“That’s an unholy mess,” Bucky muttered beside her.

“You’re telling me,” Sam agreed. “Seriously, you may want to rethink coming forward in time to be with loverboy here and go back to what you know.”

She glanced up at Steve’s passing worried expression. “Nah, I waited 80 years to be with him, I think I can manage a mess, unholy or otherwise. Besides, he’s rather worth it.”

Sam nudged Bucky, snorting. “I see what you mean. They are disgusting.”

“Told you.”

Peggy ignored them. “Beyond that, I hear tell that SHIELD fell to HYDRA and that the current state of the world leaves it without protection. I know a thing or two about that, and perhaps I can help with it. I may be over a century old here, but I do still get a thing or two about intelligence and global security.”

“How much money do I have to pay you to have her and Fury go toe-to-toe,” Sam asked Steve, utter delight in his voice.

“None at all,” Steve replied good-naturedly. “But, maybe you can take my shield instead...after I get a new one made.”

That made all of them, including Peggy, turn to stare at him as he smiled mildly.

“Steve,” she whispered as Sam beside him recovered enough to shake his head.

“Nah, Steve, you’re Cap. It’s always been you!”

“Yeah, it has.” He looked down at his uniform, brushing fingers over it. “You know, the only reason I even donned this outfit was to sell war bonds for Senator Brandt. I was willing to do anything to be involved, to show the world I could do it, that I was worthy.”

He glanced over to Bucky sitting beside Peggy. “Someone once accused me of doing this because I had something to prove and he was right. But now, after everything we’ve been through, I don’t have to prove anything anymore. I know my worth and it’s time to pass the shield on to someone else who has the strength to wield it.”

Beside her Peggy could catch Bucky smiling softly.

“But Bucky,” Sam started, glancing to Steve’s oldest friend. Bucky held up his hand, the one she knew was metal, from where it rested on the back of the bench.

“It’s all right, Sam. I want you to have it.” The peace that had permeated him turned somewhat wistful. “Maybe a different me would have been hurt, but there’s too much still going on in my head to hold that sort of burden. I am still just figuring me out, who I am now in this time after everything that’s happened. Besides, I was always better being the right hand guy to the man with the shield. Feels more comfortable there.”

Sam’s expression turned soft, a myriad of thoughts passing in the blink of an eye; awe, worry, uncertainty, pride. He turned back up to Steve, more misty that perhaps he would ever admit to. “Steve, I don’t know what to say.”

“Yes?”

Sam could only chuckle, shaking his head. “What will you do?”

Steve looked down at Peggy with so much hope on his face it almost hurt to see it. “Marry my best girl if she will have me. Settle down to a normal life. Let her save the world for a change while I do all the things Natasha told me I should be doing with myself and never did. Take a leaf out of Tony’s book and figure out who I am not as a soldier or an Avenger, but just Steve Rogers from Brooklyn.”

“I think that’s a damn fine plan,” Bucky murmured huskily.

“I do too,” Peggy replied, reaching for Steve’s hand. His fingers laced through hers, warm, comfortable, and belonging.

Sam seemed just as moved. Quietly, he nodded his head, holding out his hand for Steve’s free one, shaking it firmly before pulling him in for a brief, wordless hug. As they pulled away, Peggy suspected both were surreptitiously wiping eyes.

It was Bucky who brought up the obvious point. “Thanos broke your old shield and Howard made your last one. You think T’Challa will agree to making another one?”

“After everything, yes.” Steve sounded certain of it. “Pepper says she can likely find Howard’s original notes in Tony’s files and Shuri has already agreed to use those as a basis for creating a new one. It will be a gift to the Avengers for everything they did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Sam protested. “That was you all. I was snapped out of existence, chilling in whatever the afterlife was.”

Peggy had heard the story, of course, and it still sounded horrific to her, the idea of people simply being snapped out of existence, including Bucky and Sam.

“No, but even T’Challa agrees that a presence is needed and that you’d be a fine successor. Besides, there is no one else I want more. You’re a good man, Sam. That’s all you need to be.”

Steve had never lost the ability to inspire people to be their best selves. She watched the other man straighten his shoulders, standing tall with the weight of his new responsibility. She didn’t think that Sam could look more moved if he tried by Steve’s simple words. “Thank you.”

Steve clapped the other man on the shoulder in a wordless gesture of love, friendship and gratitude. If half of the stories Peggy had heard thus far were true, they had been through much together and she understood a little of why Steve would entrust him with the task. She looked forward to getting to know Sam Wilson better.

“So, this getting married, settling down thing, I better be a groomsman at this wedding.” Sam’s earnest gratefulness moved to pointed teasing in a flash. “I mean, we all know the one-armed bandit here will be your best man, but I’m just saying ain’t nobody look as good as me in a tux.”

“I think I’m up for this challenge.” Bucky pulled at his thick mane of long, dark hair. “Been feeling the need to shape this up again, get back to looking like a human.”

“Please, you need a full make over to match this sophistication.”

“Eh, I had some smooth moves on the dance floor once.”

“Back when Glenn Miller was on the radio, sure, but I dare you to get out there to Earth, Wind and Fire.”

As they bickered, she couldn’t help but be reminded of a different time and place, of the bickering and adventures, and Steve Rogers watching her with the same look then as now, like she hung the moon and all the stars in the sky. Three years, ten years, eighty years, it didn’t matter, as long as she was there with him she could manage any century.

“”You ready to face the future?” His lazy smile was carefree in a way Peggy didn’t she had ever seen him.

“Better question, Captain Rogers, is the future ready for me?”

That earned an outright laugh out of him. “Honestly, no, I don’t think they ever could be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The genesis of this one off was a conversation I had at a Culver's in North Kansas City just three weeks ago. I literally had just stepped of a plane from LA wearing an Infinity War shirt (because it was comfy and I had been on a plane for three hours) and had a young teenager working there outline her dislike of and frustration with the end of _Avengers: Endgame_ , a sentiment I do not agree with, but to each their own. As I patiently tried to order a butter burger and frozen custard, I teased her and asked if she would be happy if Peggy had come forward, to which she said marginally, and thus this story was born. More than anything, it scratched an itch of a "what if" and I rather liked the idea of a Peggy/Bucky reunion too. So Culver's cashier in North Kansas City, wherever you are, this one is for you.
> 
> Obviously this involves parallel timelines and what not, branches where we go left instead of right. I'm always fascinated by those.


	28. A Voice Calling In The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy receives an early morning wake up call.

Without even opening her eyes Peggy knew it was well before dawn. The innate sense of the movements of the sun and the passage of time from twenty years of missions keyed her in on just how early it was. Still, she didn’t want to brave opening an eye to look at the time, to admit the fact that she was indeed awake and aware. Perhaps if she simply rolled over, buried her head in the soft down of the pillows, closed her eyes and concentrated really hard she could will herself to sleep for another few, precious hours…

An arm slid around her waist and a chin propped itself in the crook of her shoulder. “I know you’re awake.”

Peggy refused to open her eyes even for Steve’s deep, slumber-roughened voice, but she did smile as she snuggled backwards closer to his warmth. “So are you, soldier. I was hoping the two of us could pretend, though. Stay in bed, not move, and maybe we could get another couple of hours of shut eye?”

“It’s nice to have hopes and dreams.”

“Well, it is Christmas. Isn’t that what all of this is about?”

He snorted, but didn’t disagree as he buried his face deeper into her hair, his arm heavy and relaxed around her. Perhaps, if they waited it out just a little longer…

Down the hallway she could hear floating in the stillness of the night the sweet, silvery voice of their daughter, not so quietly counting down the minutes in some made up melody, alerting Peggy it was indeed still before 6 am, but not by much. Why had they ever put a clock in her room?

“At least she can tell time now,” Steve murmured drowsily, reading Peggy's thoughts.

“I’m sure Mrs. Bennett will be proud, however, she’ll have the whole house up before too long.”

“Suppose we need to be up as well, else they’ll get the jump on us.”

“Do we divide and conquer or simply stand together and hope they don’t overwhelm us.”

“Best strategy? I’ll lead them to their objective and set about parameters. You see to the provisions. Once we get those started, we can set them loose.”

“You always did have a mind for these things.”

“That’s why they let me boss everyone around.” He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek before letting her go to crawl out of their warm bed and into the cold, Christmas pre-dawn. Peggy yawned, finally blinking awake as she fumbled for slippers and robe, stretching as she attempted to pull herself together with only mixed results. Down the hall she could hear the quiet squeal of delight, followed by small feet rushing into the room as a tiny body hurled into the middle of the massive, still untidy bed.

“Merry Christmas, Mama!” Natalie threw herself at Peggy’s middle, her copper-colored, strawberry blonde hair a riot, sticking at strange angles that made no sense when you consider how straight her daughter's hair normally was.

“Happy Christmas, love! You need a comb through your hair.”

“It’s all crazy,” she grinned, fairly bouncing off the mattress. “I couldn’t sleep! Was too excited!”

“I could tell!” Peggy exaggerated a yawn, earning a snort and eye roll from the little imp. Peggy reached to her vanity for her own brush to try and bring some order to the mess. “Did you wake your brothers?”

“Sammy threw a pillow at me and Jamie rolled over and went back to sleep.”

Down the hall she could hear the two grumbling loudly to their father, Jamie muttering something about it should be criminal to wake before the sun while his younger brother only groaned. Judging from the solid thump that sounded, Sam may also have walked into a wall.

“They better not start without me,” Nat squirmed under Peggy’s persistent grooming, eager to rush down the stairs, held firm by her mother’s hand on her head.

“No one is starting anything without you. Now sit still.” The snarl at the back of her scalp was matted and required working slowly through it. “Besides, they aren’t awake enough to open presents.”

“How can they not be? Santa came! Don’t they want to see?”

Ahh, to be young again and have all the lack of impulse control of a soon-to-be seven-year-old. “They have the one thing you don’t! Patience!”

Another eye roll ensued, looking alarmingly like herself, as if Nat’s behavior wasn’t a clear indicator who in the family she took after. “Mrs. Bennett is always saying that.”

“Mrs. Bennett is right. Patience is a virtue and will get you out of more than a few sticky situations. Ask your father about it.”

“Yeah, but he’s a saint.”

That gave Peggy pause as she smoothed out her daughter’s now decidedly tangle-free hair. “A saint? Why do you say that?”

“Because Mrs. Bennett is always saying I would try the patience of a saint and I try Daddy’s patience all the time. I know, because he’s got a lot of it to try.”

Far be it for Peggy to get into a theological debate on that subject. She instead kissed the top of Nat’s shiny head. “Go downstairs with your brothers. Don’t you even so much as peek at a present till you are given leave, mind.”

“Okay!” Quick as a flash the girl was gone in a whirl of red flannel and blue, fuzzy slippers, bounding down the stairs with the sort of energy that made Peggy feel exhausted. Shaking her head she paused long enough to make the bed and wash her face before stumbling down the steps, peeking out of the still dark windows to the hint of silver just lightening the eastern skies. She didn’t think that Jamie’s supposition on the criminality of being awake and moving at this time was altogether wrong. She followed the sounds of bickering and the scent of coffee to the living room where the resplendent family tree stood, lit up like Time Square and piled all around with boxes and bags, all brightly colored and shining in the glow.

“Merry Christmas,” she called, effectively cutting off the boys’ brewing argument over where to sit as she plopped onto the sofa. “Where’s your father?”

“Kitchen,” Sammy grunted, shooting Jamie an exultant smirk for something Peggy had missed, most likely some sibling power struggle that had started the bickering she had walked in on. Jamie, the elder by two-and-a-half years, decided to play it cool, settling on the floor in the middle of the room, glowering at his sister who hummed around the pile, eyeing big boxes with eagerness.

“I think I know what that is,” Nat crowed, tapping one of the larger boxes.

“Dad said you aren’t supposed to touch, and you don’t know.” Jamie swatted at Nat who danced away unfazed by her brother’s bossiness.

“Do too know and I only touched it a little!”

“Dad said not to touch it at all!”

“Stop being mean!”

“I’m only doing what Dad told me to do.”

“Natalie! James!” Peggy’s voice didn’t raise in volume, but it certainly did in intensity. Her eldest and youngest glared at each other, but the bickering calmed to a dull roar as Sammy snuggled beside her, yawning. He leaned his dark head against her shoulder.

“Too early, love?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, rubbing at his droopy, blue eyes. “Why don’t we get coffees?”

“Because coffee will stunt your growth and you want to catch up to your brother, right?” Steve cut in over head, holding a cup of delicious, dark brew in front of her face. With eager fingers she reached for it, pressing the warmth of it deep into her palms.

Seeing that Sam’s lack of height compared to his older brother was a rather sore subject for him, Steve’s warning had the desired effect. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Good. So, Jamie, you are the sergeant. Why don’t you find your sister a present and let’s get this campaign going.”

Dutifully, Jamie plunged into the pile, pulling out a box for Natalie that turned out to be the doll she’d been begging for since Labor Day, much to her joy. One-by-one they chewed through the pile, finding the set of Narnia books that Sam had asked for, the hockey skates that had been Jamie’s most desired wish, thick, warm sweaters for all of them knitted by Ana Jarvis, games and puzzles, books and stuffed toys. Howard had fairly spoiled the lot of them, much to Peggy’s mild annoyance, but as he had no children of his own just yet he’d taken to spending on her three. This was how a squealing Natalie had received a beautifully rendered, hand crafted and realistic dollhouse, Peggy suspected mostly crafted by him.

“It’s really too much,” Peggy sighed, eyeing Nat and Sam as they murmured in awe at all the little features they were finding in it, a giant puzzle box for the two of them to explore.

“You going to be the one to tell him to take it back?” Steve was working through his third cup of the day, amusing considering caffeine, like alcohol, had little effect on him. He must be desperate.

“I suppose not,” she sighed, knowing that now that Natalie had it, she couldn’t just very well take it away from her. “When is Tony born again?”

“Not for another seven-and-a-half years, so you’ll have to suffer till then.” He passed her a plate filled with sweet rolls. “I noticed you failed on your half of the morning strategy, Agent Carter.”

“I had to improvise. Your daughter ambushed me.”

“I see. Isn’t she half your daughter, too?”

“Not when she wakes me up before the sun rises, then she’s all yours.” Peggy sniffed, glancing to the pearly break of day outside, bright with the fresh coating of snow overnight. “I figure at some point they will want out and we can let them exhaust themselves while we sneak a nap in. What time is dinner?”

“Bucky said three, I suspect to allow us a chance to sleep.”

“I’ll kiss him later for that.”

“I’m not sure you I feel about you kissing my best friend for any reason.”

“Don’t be jealous. He’s got his own and I’m all yours.”

“Damn straight,” he rumbled, leaning in to place a kiss on her lips, sweet with frosting and cinnamon. This, of course, generated groans and shrieks of disgust from the children, which only seemed to amuse Steve more than shame him.

“Think if we make out on the couch they will run away and leave us alone?”

“It’s nice to have hopes and dreams, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?”

She only grinned as she met his lips again, happily ignoring the gags and dramatic sighs. Peggy had a feeling they would get over it. She would be content having early Christmas mornings filled with ostentatious gifts, bickering children, and Steve’s blissful optimism for the rest of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of these sketches are based of prompts which I run with in strange directions. I am attempting to do an advent calendar prompt. So far...I'm six days behind! It's a busy season, but I will do my best to make all 25 days!
> 
> I will say this one was fun and now have flushed out these munchkins in my brain. They may keep popping up in these one offs.


	29. A Gift Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy finds something Steve left behind.

It was standard issue, grayish-green and chipped at the corners, locked with a simple combination bolt, the sort every soldier had. Certainly it was no different than any of the other foot lockers that belonged to any of the other soldiers out there, certainly no different than the ones for any of the men killed in action. But this one was different. It had been Steve’s and for that reason alone Peggy couldn’t bring herself to open it.

“We didn’t know what to do with it.” Morita stood beside it solemnly, one of the honor guard of Howling Commandos who had escorted it to her SSR offices. “He doesn’t have family back home, really, outside of Bucky’s parents.”

“So we thought we’d bring it to you to sort out.” Dugan tapped it gently with his boot, surprisingly solemn. “I mean, he’d want you of anyone to have it, I think.”

Peggy stared at the lot of them; Falsworth, Dernier, Jones, each one looking to her to have some sort of answer to this puzzle. After all, the Howling Commandos were Steve’s creation, his brainchild. Without his guidance, they were lost, and since Barnes was gone as well, that left only her to sort this all out.

She wished she didn’t have to.

“Right,” she sighed softly. “Well, the Barnes’s are the closest to family he had. Let’s go through what’s in here and pack it along with those things we are sending back to Mrs. Barnes. I am thinking she will want them to remember him by.”

Dutifully, Dernier pulled out bolt cutters. Had he expected that? With sad dignity he set about his work, snipping off the simple metal lock. It clattered to the concrete with hard finality. Gently, the small man opened the locker, laying back the lid as if it were the cover to a holy relic, reverent as they all peeked inside at what passed for the private life of their now fallen leader. It wasn’t particularly full, all things considered. Steve’s standard issue uniforms were tucked away neatly alongside his winter, four-button uniform jacket, stacked as if waiting for him to return. Socks and other clothes were packed under that, a spare pair of boots, several dog-eared tomes of history and strategy, and at least one of the science fiction novels of which Barnes had been so fond, likely kept because it was a lasting memory of the friend he’d loved like a brother and lost so tragically.

“The uniforms can all be reused by someone,” Dugan offered, eyeing the stack of drab and khaki cotton. “Though, I don’t know for sure who would fit his clothes.”

“None of us, that’s for sure,” Morita snorted, gently pulling out Steve’s uniform jacket. “This one I think should be sent back, though. He earned that rank and those medals.”

Peggy had held back, almost too afraid to step into the private circle of Steve’s men. There was something seemed so taboo about rifling through the remainder of his things, not to mention a tad macabre, picking through the bones of the dead. Still, it was a job that had to be done. She bent down to kneel beside it, gently looking in one of the trays at the odds and ends collected there. There were of course the more mundane things; a comb, toiletries, a Hershey bar stashed away, still wrapped. But there were other bits that spoke more to Steve’s character and who he was; the bar off one of his medals, the pin of it bent, carelessly left there and not on his jacket, a leaf collected in a forest somewhere, a bundle of dried flowers, several nubs of drawing pencils, bit of rubber erasers worn to scraps, scratch paper with doodles draw in corners. 

One-by-one she sorted through pieces as they dug deeper into his life. In an envelope, she found photos of he and Barnes and a half-finished letter to someone named Alice. From the contents she guessed it was one of the Barnes sisters. Despite herself, she glanced at the words within, a chatty, breezy letter filled with a tamed down version of their exploits, complaining loudly about her brother, and hoping they were all well at home. It was about as brotherly as one of her scant letters from Michael during his university days.

Peggy hated to admit she was privately glad of that, and she also hated to admit that she looked for mentions of herself in his words and then chided herself when she found none. What was she to expect? She and Steve had shared nothing more than long conversations and quiet looks across conference room tables, with the occasional drink or two thrown in. They’d never had an understanding. The war seemed to take up far too much time for that. Still, she had rather hoped she’d meant something, enough at least to warrant a mention in a letter back home to a woman he’d grown up with as a sister. Perhaps he had in other letters? Perhaps she hadn’t rated a letter home at all.

“Anyone else feel wrong doing this?” Jones frowned grimly from the side, staring at the pile so gently laid of things to pass on and things to distribute. It hit Peggy that she was mooning over a letter, worrying what Steve’s loved ones knew of her and that he was gone. What did it matter one way or the other what he thought or felt? It wasn’t to be anyway.

“Here are his sketchbooks.” Falsworth held those reverently, several different ones, all the size to fit in a pocket or pack, the record of his adventures since he’d enlisted in Queens so long ago. “These should definitely go home to Brooklyn.”

“Never saw a fellow so caught up in drawing.” Dugan shook his head, his bowler tipped low over his sober, fond smile. “Regular Michelangelo he was.”

“I don’t think he thought he was that gifted,” Jones countered, a sentiment Peggy knew was true. “Still, I have a good one he got of me. I sent it home to my mama for her to keep. You know, just in case the real thing didn’t make it back.”

Dugan looked both surprised and slightly affronted at that bit of news. “He made a picture of you? He never made one of me!”

“Who’d want to draw one of your ugly mug?” Morita snorted. He’d also knelt down to help Peggy sort through the contents and had reached the bottom of the trunk. He pulled up a package, flat and wrapped in brown paper and twine.

“What’s that?” Peggy eyed it, curious, for it was clear judging by Morita furtive expression he knew what it was.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he sighed, shaking his dark head, glancing up at Peggy with a half-apologetic expression. “I didn’t know he still had this.”

“What is it?” Falsworth followed up with Peggy’s request.

“I can’t believe he chickened out on this.”

“On what?” 

Morita turned to glare at his fellow Commandos. “You know...the thing!”

“What thing?” Dugan muttered in open confusion, Jones and Dernier not far behind.

Morita grimaced in frustration. “The thing he was working on at Christmas.”

They all blinked. Then the shoe dropped, at least for the lot of them. They all gasped in comprehension, nodding to themselves as they eyed one another. Peggy, however, was still very much in the dark and she didn’t like it.

“Would one of you idiots care to explain?”

Now they all suddenly got bashful on her. Dugan and Falsworth exchanged embarrassed glances and they suddenly got interested in their own toes. Jones looked to Morita helplessly. Only Dernier seemed to have any decisiveness in this, as he threw up his hands in mild disgust before openly stating in French that they should all just tell her already. 

“It was his gift to give,” Morita shot back, indecisive as he held the package between two hands.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Without preamble, Peggy reached to snag it from Morita, who only mildly protested. She studied it carefully. It wasn’t that big, but it was perfectly wrapped by someone she guessed wasn’t Steve. It did have her name on it in his scratched handwriting, followed by “Merry Christmas.”

Morita beside her was apologetic. “He was working on it all last fall. I hadn’t realized he hadn’t given it to you.”

Peggy glanced at the others. They clearly all knew. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been a secret to anyone but her and in the moment she found she couldn’t bring herself to open it in front of all the knowing, grief-filled expressions.

“Right, let’s finish this up then. I’ll just keep this with me.”

No one said anything in protest against it. One-by-one they worked the the last pieces of Steve Rogers life. What they planned to send home would pile with Barnes’ items to ship back together to Bucky’s family. They would want to have something of their boys. They rest Dugan promised he would see to handling himself. As for the mysterious package…

Peggy waited till the men had filed out, leaving her to the silence of her office. She set the package in the middle of her desk, fondly running a finger against the ink of her name. Christmas had been a chaotic time. The Commandos had been scheduled to be in London, but had instead followed a tip that had kept them in the Ukraine until nearly the New Year. They’d made it home long enough to celebrate 1945 with the hope that the war would end soon. They’d all gone out that night carousing, as they usually did. Peggy and several other office staffers had gone with. Barnes had eyes for Lorraine that night, the two dancing in the warmth and firelight of the pub they always frequented. Steve...he’d stayed at the table with her and the men, too shy to even bring up the suggestion. They’d spent the evening just talking as she recalled, of Christmases past, of New Year's hopes, of what they would like to do after the war. So many hopes and dreams that night, scuttled at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.

With tear-blurred eyes she searched for the end of the strings, pulling them loose before feeling for an open edge to rip. The paper tore, sounding inordinately loud in the quiet of her office, the plain, brown parchment giving way to bundled backing and then to a picture frame, elegant and simple. Inside was a portrait done in charcoal, simple dark lines on the paper, beautiful in their stark perfection. It only hit her several moments later that the lines coalesced to form a portrait of her.

“Oh, Steve,” she sobbed, softly, holding the picture far enough away to study it. She wasn’t even sure if it was her, the figure he had drawn looked far too lovely to be plain old Peggy Carter. It had clearly not been any one moment in time, judging from the way she was posed, as if sitting on the edge of something; a jeep, a fence, the edge of her desk perhaps. Certainly, she’d never been in any of those places in the red dress she had packed away in her things, and rarely with laughter and smiles. She looked so carefree in the moment, so young and happy, not old, sad and at a loss as to what to even do.

“To happier days filled with dancing,” Steve had scrawled at the bottom with the date of December 25, 1944. A hope for the future. A promise.

One that would remain unfulfilled forever.

The thin tendrils of self control she had managed to hold onto through the sorting of Steve’s remaining earthly possessions finally snapped. Her fingers trembled as she set the precious portrait aside as with a sob far louder than she had ever expected hot tears scalded down her cheeks. There in the growing darkness she mourned for the lost hope and promises and the dream of what might have been.


	30. A Bit of a Humbug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack is grinching all over Peggy's Christmas.

It was never a good sign when Jack Thompson pulled her into his office with that sort of self-satisfied smirk. It usually meant some sort of condescending lecture or odious office work was being forked over to her. Given the nature of their work lately, it was even odds as to which it was as she dutifully closed the door behind her, taking a seat in front of Thompson’s desk.

“What are you doing tonight, Carter?” Thompson leaned back lazily in his creaking office chair, tapping a file lightly against his blotter.

Peggy eyed Thompson suspiciously, unable to tell if he was being provocative or not. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Which is why I’m asking you.”

It wasn’t hard to follow the thread of Thompson’s plan. “Are you asking me to work...on Christmas Eve?”

Thompson at least had a modicum of humanity, enough to look somewhat apologetic, but only somewhat. “Look, Carter, you are one of the only agents who doesn’t have a family to be with tonight.”

“And that means automatically I don’t have plans?”

“Which was what I was asking before you got uppity about it.”

Peggy bit the inside of her cheek, willing her temper to stability before daring to speak again. “No, I have no hard and fast plans. What do you need?”

Without preamble Thompson lightly tossed the file across the desk to her. “Stake out. We have a tip that someone is selling US Army surplus weaponry on the black market to whoever has enough cash for the asking price. Looks like the main point they are sneaking them through is here, probably some low-level Port Authority guy on the take.”

A case that could have easily been turfed to any other agency but the SSR and Thompson knew it. “How did this end up in our lap?”

“Army noticed discrepancies in their shipping manifests, so they checked it out.”

“I understand that, but how did it end up in the hands of the SSR. This is a cut-and-dry case for the Army investigations.”

“Yeah, well they didn’t want it so we got it and I'm passing it on to you.”

Which meant Thompson didn’t want it, hence why he was passing it on to her. Peggy knew how the game was played. “And I of course don’t have family close by so it’s easy to assume I can just drop plans and spend the holiday staring at the port all night.”

Thompson’s shrug was equal parts indolent and frustrated. “Look, Carter, if you don’t want to be a team player, I can dig up someone else.”

Peggy knew what that meant as well. If she didn’t agree, then Thompson would make a big production of how Peggy couldn’t be bothered, how despite the fact her family was across an ocean and she was a single woman with no husband or children she had more important things to do and could save a fellow who had a wife and kids to go home to. Nevermind the fact that she knew for a fact that a quarter of the active agents had no families of their own yet and that at least three of them didn’t exactly celebrate Christmas and might be willing to do a thankless job on a holiday for everyone else. Even better, the could simply wait two days to do the op, she doubted there would be anything pressing with for it, but to even suggest it would invite scorn from Thompson.

“What time does he go on duty?”

Thompson small smile of triumph at least didn’t stray into full on gloating. “He goes on shift at 10 and covers till 6 am. Maybe you’ll get a chance to see Santa Claus while your at it.”

“Sure,” she muttered, glancing through the file notes. “Anyone on the desk overnight in case I need to call something in?”

“I doubt you will, but Horowitz is here if you run into trouble, not that you don’t usually take care of yourself.”

A nod to her capabilities, at least. Peggy took it for what it was, a concession to try and soothe her. Thompson was a jerk, but he wasn’t a stupid one. Pity for him that pandering didn’t work on her, as if she were a child that needed mollification.

“Anything else?”

Thompson waived her off as if in the end this all were meaningless, which it was. “Just stay warm out there. I hear it’s supposed to be nippy.”

“Right,” she ground out, teeth clenched behind her smile. “Happy Christmas.”

“Same to you.” He had already turned his attention elsewhere, the only dismissal he had. Peggy rose stiffly, steps measured as she walked out with back straight and chin raised, determined not to lose her temper. If the door to Thompson’s office slammed a bit harder than was necessary, well it perhaps was a slip of her fingers.

Perhaps she wasn’t as cool as she tried to be, as the noise roused Sousa from his racing paper, one dark eyebrow raised in silent question. She rolled her eyes, stalking past him to her desk to settle in her chair, pretending to busy herself with filing she couldn’t give a toss about. At this point she shouldn’t be surprised by the presumption, but the arrogance never ceased to gall her.

“How did Thompson step in it this time?”

“How doesn’t he step in it?” She shoved a folder onto another pile, the entire essence of her life at the moment, shoveling crap from one pile to another.

“He always finds new and inventive ways. He’s brilliant like that.” Sousa had his own fair share of gripes with Thompson, and Peggy found herself softening despite her irritation. “Out with it? Does he have you reorganizing the evidence locker?”

“Not that bad,” she chuckled, shuddering at the very idea. “No, he’s got me on a detail tonight.”

“On Christmas Eve?” He blinked, sounding as if Thompson had asked her to spit on the Christ Child.

“Yes,” she sighed, glaring at the case file Thompson handed her. “It’s not even something that should have made its way to us, it’s busy work. The highlight of the evening will be me watching some other poor sot freezing while he may or may not be making deals to offload Army property, which they were fool enough to lose track of.”

“Why do you have to do it tonight?”

“Because Thompson wants it done and because I’m young, single, and have no family here to protest if I’m not there.”

Clearly it hadn’t hit Sousa that this was indeed the case. “What, you didn’t have any plans?”

“Not especially. Angie has a standing invitation for me for dinner at the Martinelli abode out in Queens. Otherwise I’m on my own this holiday.” It hadn’t seemed important until he asked about it, and Peggy found she was hit with a sudden wave of longing. She hadn’t had a proper Christmas in years, not since before the war.

“How about you?” She glanced at Sousa speculatively. “Meeting up with the Sousa clan?”

“Uh, yeah! Catching the 7:15 train to Boston, should get into Fall River in time to make it to midnight mass with my family. Believe me, if I didn’t, Ma would let me have it.”

Something about the image of Daniel Sousa, a war veteran, being harassed by his mother like a schoolboy made her smile. “Before the war, Mother always expected Michael and me to be home for the Christmas Eve service at our parish church. Of course, we usually just did a carol service, not the fancy high mass, but still it was tradition.”

She so rarely spoke of home, of her parents and her town, of the England she left behind. Sometimes, it felt easier not to. The world she had known was mostly rubble anyway, and she was not the Margaret Carter who had left to join the SOE. But even then, it was still home, and there was a longing for the comfort and security of what used to be.

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes.” She had a feeling she wasn’t fooling Sousa. “A lot, I miss it a lot. I miss decorating the house and baking cookies with Mrs. Jenkins. I miss helping my mother wrap presents. She used to do the most elegant wrapping. I miss my father singing carols as he puttered around the house. He has a lovely voice…”

She trailed off, finding tears in her eyes despite herself. She viciously dashed them away, already knowing Sousa saw them and hated herself for it. Bad enough she’d already shown a flash of temper, now this.

“You know, it’s hard being away from family this time of year.” Sousa drawled softly, politely studying his knitted, sleeveless sweater as she pulled herself together. “I know I was always close to mine. When I got called up my first Christmas away about killed me. Grandma still makes _consoada_ , and I hated it as a kid, but you know I’d have willingly let them shoot off the other limbs just to eat it.”

“What is it?”

“Baked cod and potatoes, some cabbage, absolutely boring stuff, but it was Christmas.” He chuckled. “We tried feeding the cabbage to the dog and he wouldn’t touch the stuff.”

He at least succeeded in earning a chuckle out of Peggy, rousing her somewhat out of her foul mood. “Mine was mince pies. I never cared for them, but we had them every year and I always had to eat one. I usually just snuck it to Michael because he liked them.”

“Siblings always make great cover.” Sousa’s smile turned wistful. “Funny, all those things that you hated as a kid and find out you miss when you are all grown up and on your own.”

“Yeah, funny,” she sighed, leaning on her desk, twiddling a pencil between her fingers absently. She missed England more than she could say.

“Carter!” Thompson had slithered out to poke his head around the corner of his door. “Before heading out could you clean up the evidence room? Some people around here can’t seem to count...or read.”

The pencil snapped across her middle knuckle as Thompson slinked back into the recesses from whence he came. Several agents, Sousa included, turned to stare at her as if waiting for a similar snap out of her. She wouldn’t dare give them the satisfaction.

“Don’t let him get you down, Peggy,” Sousa hissed, softly. “Honestly, he’s like a greasy Scrooge, a bad banana peel put out there to make you slip and ruin your day. He wouldn’t know Christmas spirit if it hit him in face.”

“Don’t give me ideas, Daniel, else I will end up giving Thompson some of that Christmas spirit,” she groused, throwing herself up and towards the evidence room before she really did do something she would regret.


	31. Silver and Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy accepts a big responsibility.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’m not!” Tony fiddled with a shiny bauble on the gaudy tree that stood sentinel over the Stark Industries board room, decked out in the corporate colors of blue and white. “I think you’d be fabulous at it!”

“At running Stark Industries?” Peggy eyed her godson with some asperity and more than a hint of doubt, both in his brilliant idea and her capabilities. She’d just retired, after all. She’d been looking forward to years with Steve wandering the world, visiting all the places he’d seen decades ago in a different timeline, to finally relax and enjoy life. She didn’t need more work.

“I don’t know, Dad always believed in your abilities.”

She’d give Anthony this, he always did know how to play on her sentiment. Her heart ached at the thought of Howard gone so quickly, far before any of them expected it.. Despite Steve’s knowledge of future events they hadn’t anticipated Howard's loss. Steve thought they’d averted it all together, at least for a few more years until Tony was older. Yet fate said otherwise and it was with grief and shock they had rushed to New York to a heartbroken Maria and a devastated Tony trying to hold the various pieces of Howard’s empire together. 

Peggy found herself sighing as she sank into one of the leather chairs at the long oak table, watching Tony as he paced along the window overlooking Manhattan, all nervous energy tempered by aching sadness and lost despair. He must be drowning in all of this, the overwhelming details of taking up the mantle of his father’s massive legacy. He was just a boy, really, only twenty-one, more child than man in so many respects. For all that he had finished his formal education years ago, he had wandered the world since, a teenage playboy with a pocket full of money and a brain that never stopped without a responsibility in the world. Howard had shrugged and let Tony have at it, quietly reasoning he had time to live his life and sow his wild oats. Howard had never been given that chance just to be young. He thought he’d been giving his son a gift, now that he was gone it was clear he’d only managed to handicap the boy. Of course Tony was reaching out to her, his godmother. Who else did he have to turn to?

“I don’t know the first thing about running a company,” she quantified matter-of-factly, trying to underscore the point.

In the same haphazard way his father had, Tony only shrugged. “You ran SHIELD for decades, the largest intelligence agency in the world, and you mean to tell me a weapons manufacturer scares you?”

“Global politics is one thing, corporations are another.”

“So, you make sure everything is running smoothly and everyone gets the money they need to do all the things. It’s like Santa Claus all year round, getting people what they want and need. Maybe you could get Uncle Steve to dress up in a red hat.”

“Tony,” she shook her head at his flippancy.

“Aunt Peg, who do I got?” He threw up the hands he’d had shoved in his pockets before crossing them across his black, Metallica t-shirt, as if physically trying to hold himself together. “I mean Mom, sure, but right now she’s a hot mess. I’m not much better and I got to figure out Stark Industries overnight. The board has voted me in as CEO and I don’t know what I’m doing. I need someone who knows what they are doing in here, a Chief Operating Officers, because I sure don’t know how to make this place run. It’s a lot right now and I need to pass some bucks onto people I trust, people I know who can handle things. This company was Dad’s life, this and SHIELD are what he left behind and I can’t screw it up. It meant a lot to Dad and it means a lot to Mom, and she trusts you with it. I trust you with it.”

If Steve were here he’d have said yes in an instant without hesitation. His friendship with the adult Tony years before had given him a soft spot for the child he’d watch grow up, and frankly Steve was as bad as Howard had been in spoiling the boy. Still, he was right. Who else could he turn to? In another life, in another time, others filled the role for the crushed and vulnerable young man, ones who had sought to take Howard’s company and destroy Tony in the process. All of that led to the man who Steve had known, the sardonic, sarcastic, conflicted playboy with the literal broken heart. Peggy dearly hoped she would be able to help avert that outcome for Tony. Even so, the universe played its own games. Clearly, they’d thought they’d saved Howard’s life only to have his amazing brain fail him so suddenly there was nothing any of them could do to stop it. Tony needed guidance and help from those he cared for and trusted, and Howard Stark had always trusted her with what was important in his life.

“You know at my age I should be retiring to Miami or someplace warm to play shuffleboard and complain about my grandchildren.”

Tony’s smile was small, but brilliant as the wintry sun outside the window. “Do you even know what a shuffleboard is?”

“I may have played it once, I don’t recall.” She reached a hand for his where he stood by the head of the table. “I can’t promise long, you know, but I can get you a couple of years until we find someone with the youth and passion to make it thrive.”

“I suspect you aren’t dying on me just yet,” Tony shot back with a hint of sorrow. “Uncle Steve would keep you alive forever if he could.”

“Oh, he knows better, love. I just want to be around long enough to get you on your feet is all. Howard might have started this company on nothing more than a dream, but this is much bigger than he ever thought it would be and it’s a lot to foist onto your shoulders. I’ll do what I can to help you out. This is your company, remember that. Don’t let anyone else boss you around or tell you how to run it.”

“I’ll try not to.” HIs fingers squeezed tightly around hers. She could see the doubt in his practiced reassurance. “Thanks, Aunt Peggy. This means the world knowing Dad’s legacy is in good hands.”

“Well, I’ll try. The rest is up to you.” She rose to stand in front of him, wrapping arms around him whether he wanted the embrace or not. “But if you ask me, your hands are plenty good enough to keep it going.”

Peggy continued to hold on to him, politely ignoring the quiet sobs into her shoulder soaking through the fabric of her wool suit jacket.


	32. Reindeer Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy faces her most daunting challenge yet.

Peggy had faced many a harrowing and potentially dangerous situation in her career, with stories she knew would shock and amaze her future grandchildren. Between HYDRA agents and Leviathan spies, mad scientists, and various criminal elements playing all sides of the political landscape, and just the vagaries of Cold War politics, Peggy had seen and dealt with it all. She had managed it all mostly with a sense of determination and coolness under fire. Yet in the face of betrayal, death, loss, and fear the one thing she hadn’t been prepared for was the vagaries of a plain old, boring domestic life, especially when the vagrant was standing before her, twisting her hands in her romper and looking only somewhat apologetic for the news she had just lain at her poor mother’s feet.

“Natalie Sarah Rogers,” Peggy breathed, uttering each of her daughter’s names carefully in precise, clipped tones. “Could you explain to me why it is you are telling me this now rather than three weeks ago?”

Her daughter flushed, looking down at her scuffed Mary Janes which she proceeded to make worse as she dragged a toe across the kitchen tiles. “‘Cause I don’t WANNA be a reindeer, that’s why! I wanna be an angel!”

“Well, you weren’t assigned to be an angel, were you?” Peggy could feel a mild headache beginning at the base of her skull, the same place that Timothy Dugan used to love to trigger. Fitting considering she was just as ginger as he was and about as willful. “Honestly, Natalie, what did you think would happen?”

“I tried negoatiating!” Up went her pointy, elfin chin, clearly pleased with herself at using such an adult word.

From the dining room table Sam thought he could add his two cents into the conversation. “It’s negotiation, not negoatiating, stupid!”

Whip fast with a speed and grace born of her father’s legacy she spun on her brother, who had his nose buried in his latest tome. “I’m not stupid! You’re stupid!”

“Samuel!” Peggy’s patience was already wearing thin and she was in no mood to have it tested by her bookish middle child. “If you have nothing productive to add to this conversation you can butt out of it. I believe you have homework to do?”

“I did it at school,” he replied absently, already lost in whatever he was reading.

“Then you can take your book upstairs to your room.”

He blinked up at her owlishly, before shooting his triumphant sister an annoyed glare. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You exist,” she fired back, shrieking as Sam made to throw his paperback at her. He wasn’t as sturdy as Jamie, but he was nimble and deadly accurate and Peggy could see what would happen if he let it fly.

“If I see you throwing anything at your sister you’ll be grounded all through winter break! Do you hear me?”

Peggy Carter didn’t make idyll threats and well he knew it. Mulishly, he lowered his book, storming off upstairs as Nat preened from the corner of the kitchen she’d retreated to, pleased she’d provoked her foe into showing his hand. If Peggy’s mother had been there she’d likely laugh at the sweet comeuppance her grandchildren were giving their mother. Had she and Michael ever been this bad? Surely not!

“You watch it, Miss Natalie, I’m about to do the same to you.” She rounded on the girl, causing the self-satisfied smirk to melt in an instant. “You decided not to tell me that you needed a costume for this ridiculous play at school because you hoped if you whined and stomped your feet enough you would get your way.”

Perhaps it was her tone, perhaps it was the way she said it, whatever it was it clicked with Nat finally just how upset her mother was and what she did wrong. Still, she was a Rogers, and if there was one thing they knew how to do was to dig their heels in. “I didn’t cry like a baby! I asked nicely. But Miss Gerard said no, and I said I wouldn’t do it, and she said if I didn’t she’d write home to you and Daddy, so now I gotta.”

At some point in the future, Peggy was certain she would find this all hysterically funny, a cute story to tell Natalie’s future children. Right now, however, she was more livid and panicked than anything. She stared down at her daughter’s mutinous blue eyes, meeting them with stark evenness.

“Well, Miss Rogers, we have a dilemma. Because of your tardiness in telling either of your parents, you now have no costume for tomorrow evening. And I hate to tell you this, but I do not sew and your father certainly does nothing of the kind, and we both have jobs that take a lot of time. So what are we supposed to do here?”

Only when it was laid plain did Natalie finally get her mother’s point. Realization and an equal amount of tears welled as a real fear she couldn’t pull this off rose to the fore. “Can’t we just go to the store and buy one?”

“What store has a reindeer costume for a little girl for her school play?”

Down went her expression towards her toes. Scrape went her shoe across the tile.

“Idonknow,” she mumbled in a soft rush, thin shoulders slumping. “Sears, maybe?”

“I doubt it.” The idea had crossed Peggy’s mind, but she couldn’t say that she would have even known where to start buying an outfit. “Now it’s late and the store is closed. When are we supposed to go and buy it?”

“After work tomorrow?” Scuff went the other toe.

“Before your play? That’s cutting it a bit close, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Natalie whispered with a sniff. “I don’t know what to do, Mama.”

Well...that admission did break her heart, just a little. Her cold anger fading, she sighed, bending down to the height of Natalie. “Come here.”

In a flurry of snuffles and strawberry pigtails she threw herself at Peggy, snuffling and murmuring apologies. Natalie was her most impetuous child, but she hadn’t meant it. After all, she was a girl who knew what she wanted and wasn’t willing to settle for less. That Peggy respected.

“Love, I’m sorry I got angry with you. I just wanted you to see how your actions made a big mess out of things!”

“I didn’t mean to,” she sniffed, pulling away to wipe at streaming eyes. “I just don’t wanna be a stupid reindeer.”

“I know,” Peggy sighed, smoothing strands of ruddy gold hair off Natalie’s now flush face. “But you could be the prettiest reindeer there, if you like.”

“I could?” This piqued Nat’s interest as she stared at her mother hopefully.

“Maybe...possibly. Let me put in a few phone calls and I will see what I can do.”

Peggy was going to owe Ana Jarvis several weeks worth of lunches for her brilliance in the face of an eleventh hour crises. A few quick calls to contacts she had in the city and Ana arrived at their house in New Jersey with a dark brown ballet leotard paired with dark brown tights and a matching skirt and a pair of black ballet slippers to complete the ensemble. It was all crowned by a pair of sequined antlers that sparkled with just enough glamor to appease a seven-year-old who had been jilted for the role she had actually wanted.

“It was nothing!” Ana waved off Peggy’s profuse exclamations as she deftly painted the tip of Natalie’s freckled nose with eyeliner. “What sort of aunt would I be if I couldn’t save the day once in a while? Now, Miss Natalie, how does that look?”

Natalie studied her anterled reflection, grinning happily. “It sparkles so much! Suzie Allen is going to be so jealous.”

“Because that is the purpose of a Christmas play, to make all the other children jealous of your costume.” Peggy wry tone did not fly over the head of her daughter, who at least flushed as she got her mother’s point. “What do we say to Ana for all the work she’d done for us?”

With all the impulse that Natalie seemed to exude, she threw herself up to wrap her skinny arms around Ana’s waist. “Thank you, Aunty Ana! This is amazing!”

“You’re welcome, dear. Not so bad for last minute, eh?”

“No,” she flushed, knowing her mother was giving her a pointed look. “I’m sorry for making you rush around for all of this.”

“It is a good lesson on not procrastinating!” Ana gave her perpetually cheerful smile and bent to kiss the top of Natalie’s forehead. “What will your papa and brothers say?”

“They boys will say I look stupid, but Daddy will say I'm beautiful because he always says that.”

“Your papa has good taste. I would trust it.” Ana wiped the lipstick smudge off Natalie’s skin as she released her. “Let’s say we go and show them just what an elegant reindeer you make!”

“Okay!” With all of the energy and impetuousness Natalie had in spades, she rushed off to grab her winter things as Ana packed her supplies quickly to take with her. “Should I wear my galoshes to keep my slippers dry?”

“Yes, please.” Peggy shook her head, eyeing her friend. “What would I do without you?”

“You run SHIELD just fine, never doubt your abilities.” Ana always did keep Peggy grounded, even when she felt she somehow failed at this whole motherhood role. “Not everyone is skilled with a needle, just like not everyone is skilled with saving the world. And Natalie is lucky she has a mother who can save the world and an aunty who can throw together a costume for her.”

Peggy thought of her own mother and her despair of Peggy ever making a proper lady out of herself. “I suppose I always thought that good mothers did those sorts of things for their children. I guess that is my mother talking.”

Ana snort was elegantly dismissive. “What does she know about it?”

Peggy wished she could be so light-handed about it all. “She did raise two children and now a grandson.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it the same as her or that you are doing it wrong. I think you and Steve are fine parents. And so there are little snafus. It is good you have friends who can help you along the way.”

Ana had a way of seeing the positive in everything, a gift that Peggy cherished about her. “I’m glad I have you as a friend as well. How else would I dress my children?”

“Ready!” Natalie bounced up from putting her galoshes on, grabbing Ana’s hand. “Come on, I don’t wanna be late!”

“Darling, with the speed that you move at, I don’t think being late will ever be your problem,” Peggy teased, ushering them all out the door and down the stairs where everyone else waited in various states of patience. Natalie bounded first to Steve, who was chatting amiably with Edwin, preening as she pirouetted for his approval.

“What a lovely reindeer,” Steve observed with sly amusement. “But I was waiting on my daughter, a little girl named Natalie Rogers. Maybe you’ve seen her?”

“Daddy, it’s me!” She giggled, shaking her antlers. “See, they sparkle!”

“I see! You look amazing. Don’t you think so, Mr. Jarvis?”

Edwin as always was the height of decorum, even if there was a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Miss Rogers, you are as stunning as your mother.”

To be compared to her mother was usually the highest compliment Natalie could receive and she blushed as she grinned up at Peggy. “Mr. Jarvis thinks I look pretty!”

“So you do!” Peggy adjusted the antlers which had gone slightly askew in her rushing. “Now, go get your brothers and load up in the car.”

Off she ran to do her mother’s bidding earning the indulgent smile of Edwin and Ana and the mildly bemused one of Steve. Peggy could only sigh in relief, glad that disaster was averted for the moment. “I am simply glad we didn’t have to stick her in pajamas with a pair of sticks on her head for antlers, because that was what I was about to resort to.”

“Oh, heavens no!” Ana looked positively askanced as she fit herself neatly to Edwin’s side. “It was simple enough! A few trips to the store…”

“And a search through Mr. Stark’s prop trunk in the attic…” Edwin murmured not-so-quietly and a tad guiltily.

Ana was unfazed. “He wasn’t using them and I thought that he wouldn’t mind.”

Steve expression flickered from mild horror to dubiousness to acceptance so fast it was a wonder he wasn't dizzy. “You don’t mean that you gave my daughter one of Howard’s...stunt props?”

If she wasn’t so disquieted herself Peggy would have laughed at her husband’s discomfort outright. Still, Edwin was quick to defend it with mild affontry. “Hardly a stunt prop, merely a leftover for a long ago Christmas party involving showgirls dressed as Santa’s helpers. I don't think he even remembers they are packed away upstairs, so I doubt he will notice.”

Poor Steve had the stoic look he always employed when a Stark was up to things that made his poor sensibilities melt. She rescued the situation by wrapping an arm around him, tugging him to the door. “Come along, we best get the herd to the school while they are still dressed nicely and using their best manners.”

“Very true, Agent Carter.” Steve knew all too well what happened when the troops got restless. “Jamie, Sam, Nat, load up.”

There was a stampede to the garage door that sounded less like three children and more like a herd of elephants, to the surprise and delight of the Jarvis’ who seemed to be amused by the Rogers children on the whole.

“One can certainly tell their your children, Miss Carter,” Edwin teased quietly as Steve attempted to bring order to the chaos.

Peggy grinned in reply. “Yes, well, I always did like living a dangerous life, Mr Jarvis. I suppose it is just par for the course.”


	33. I'll Be Home For Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy brings the best Christmas news to the Barnes family.

Bucky Barnes looked just like his father.

It was the first thought that occurred to her as she regarded the middle-aged couple sitting hand and hand in the conference room. George Barnes sat to the left of his wife, Winifred, on the far side of the table, each with the sort of set, determined expression that she had seen on many awaiting the fate of loved ones during the war. They were trying to be brave. Peggy’s heart ached for them.

“Last time I saw them was Radio City Music Hall.” Steve stared at them through the blinds, far enough away the couple wouldn’t likely see him. “They had all come to see my last show over here. They brought the girls with them. I remember Becky wanted to meet the dancing girls. She wanted to be an actress. It scandalized her mother.”

He stared at the pair with such raw emotion it ached to watch him. They were the closest thing to a family he had left and he had been without them for close to fifteen years. Had he looked at her the same way when he’d found her again after so long?

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

Steve nodded, eyes never leaving the pair. “As ready as I will ever be. I’m more worried about them seeing me. They thought I was dead for years. And then Bucky…”

“One shock at a time, then we will see how they are doing.” She was half afraid the first one might be too much for them. “Let me go in and talk to them first. I’ll call you in when I’m ready.”

“Right,” he muttered, as if she were rattling off commands, the familiar facade of the soldier settling easily in a moment of stress. 

She couldn’t help herself, she took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, earning a small hint of a smile. “You are here and alive and so is Bucky, and it’s Christmas. It’s the best present they could ask for. It will be alright, I promise.”

For the man that had seen so much grief and loss so recently, Steve Rogers was clearly having a hard time believing that.

The couple jumped ever so slightly as she entered, staring at her with wide, guarded expressions. She knew so little about them, mostly from a scant file and the anecdotes of Steve and Bucky. Like Steve’s parents, they were the descendants of the same waves of immigrants that had formed the fabric of their Brooklyn neighborhood. George was well-respected and beloved in the community, had served in the first war as a sharp-shooter, much like his son, and had inherited a small grocery that his father had built up nearly fifty years before. Winifred she knew from stories was his practical and good-hearted wife, the heart of the Barnes clan, and if Steve was to be believed she was where he got his wicked aim with his shield. They were also a family who had lost a son and a man who was something like one and she could see the grief and wary acceptance as they watched her. They had come there prepared to hear the worst news, perhaps confirmation on their deaths. She could see it in George’s handsome face, as stoic as Barnes before a mission, and in the blank determination in Winifred’s startling blue eyes, the same shade as her son's. Peggy met them each with a soft, if professional smile.

“Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, I’m Agent Peggy Carter with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

They both nodded quietly as she settled across from them, files and notes in hand, prepared to manage this as professionally as possible. “I suppose you are both wondering why I called you in here today?”

After a shared glance, it was George who finally spoke. “I suppose you finally heard about one of the boys.”

“Yes,” she replied promptly. No sense beating about the bush with it, they weren’t stupid and it wasn’t hard to figure out why the SSR would be interested in calling them in. “On both Sergeant Barnes and Captain Rogers.”

“You found them? Their bodies? Can you bring them home?” Winifred’s questions tumbled out in an agony of hope and grief, her long fingers clutching at the handkerchief she held twisted in them, useless against the tears welling. “I mean, something to hold onto at least. We didn’t have anything to even bury, just an empty tombstone for Buck. As for Steve...Sarah made me promise to look after him. He needs to be buried with them, at the very least, put beside his parents.”

Peggy’s heart broke for them both. “Mrs. Barnes...I didn’t come with news of their bodies, no.”

Hope faded on both of their faces, the threatening tears finally falling down Winifred’s. “Why did you call us in, then?”

Peggy knew she would have to tread this carefully. She hated lying to the obviously kindly pair, but with Steve’s full story classified and too unbelievable by half, the general consensus between Philips, Howard, Steve and herself had been to land somewhere in the middle with the truth being mixed with the standard military avoidance tactic - classification and secret operations.

“As you are aware, the Howling Commandos, the unit that Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes served in, was an elite unit that worked primarily on specialized targets. They were on a mission to capture a high-ranking scientist in the employ of HYDRA, Hitler’s science division. It was in that mission that Sergeant Barnes went missing, presumed dead. Our intelligence soon found out that was not the case, that Barnes was very much alive, but in the confusion of the Allied invasions had been turned over to Russian hands.”

They both went still - very still. So still that Peggy worried the shock might be too much, that they may just both collapse on the spot. To her mild relief, Winifred broke first, a sob that ripped from her as she collapsed against her husband, her dark head nestled into his chest as he held her close. He too struggled, as grief and joy mingled, clearly confused with which to feel first. He finally choked out a response. “He’s...he’s alive? My boy is alive?”

“Yes,” Peggy broke into a happy grin. “He’s alive.”

There were clouds masking his own excitement, however. “But the Russians have him?”

“They did have him. He’s now in our hands, at a recovery hospital in New Jersey. He’s...he has been through a lot, much of it I think is better explained by our doctors, but they are expecting a full recovery.” She paused, trying to find words to put the next bit to them carefully. “In his mission he...he fell from quite a height. It’s a miracle he’s even still alive. Part of the fall damaged his left arm beyond repair. Russian doctors did what they could for him, but his arm did have to be removed.”

She could see WInifred flinch at that, never moving from her husband’s embrace. George at least took it with stoic grace. He had likely seen many such incidents in his war. “That doesn’t matter. We’ll get by, I know it. He’s alive and that’s what matters.”

“When can we see him?” Winifred had finally look up, her expression beaming and hopeful for the first time. Peggy hated crushing it with her cautiousness.

“Perhaps not for a week or two, after the holidays. The doctors have had to keep him medicated and asleep for his healing, but we will arrange something as soon as they advise it. You will be the first to know as soon as they do.”

“We can’t see him sooner?” Winifred’s pleading nearly had Peggy caving on the spot.

“Winnie, be patient.” George hugged her tightly. “He’s alive!”

“But will he be okay? She says he’s being taken care of, but how do we know…”

“Mrs. Barnes,” Peggy interrupted, gently as she could. “Please trust us. Sergeant Barnes was one of our own. He’s being cared for by the best doctors. Howard Stark is personally investing money into seeing towards his care.”

“Howard Stark? The industrialist?” George looked impressed at that. “Why does he care about our son?”

Peggy had to wonder just what Barnes did and didn't tell his parents in his letters home. “Mr. Stark worked closely with the SSR and Sergeant Barnes' unit. Believe me when I saw we all care about his well being, especially the man who found him.”

“How did you find him?”

At this, Peggy finally glanced outside, between the blinds that opened up into the bullpen. With his unerring accuracy, Steve pinpointed her signal and rose to make his way over, the other agents watching with blatant curiosity. Peggy just prayed it didn’t end with them calling an ambulance.

“Because Sergeant Barnes was not the only one to survive a close call,” she said simply as the door opened.

Peggy wasn’t precisely sure what she expected. Certainly, she had rather thought that they’d both be frozen in shock, much as they had at the news of Barnes’ survival. What she hadn’t expected was just how fast Winifred Barnes could move for a woman who was in her early fifties. In the blink of an eye she had thrown herself into the arms of Steve, sobbing as if her heart would break, unintelligible noises that Peggy could only guess were something happy. On the opposite side of the table, George Barnes hadn’t moved at all, still staring wide-eyed at the man who he had known as a sickly, skinny thing all of his childhood. They had only seen Steve once really in his new form, perhaps he was still trying to wrap around the idea that the tall, powerfully built man was indeed the boy their son had dragged home with him so long ago. When he finally did move, it was slowly, in a daze as he looked Steve over, as if trying to reassure him that he was indeed the same person.

“George,” Steve said simply, all the while trying to hold Winifred up from collapsing as she fell completely to pieces.

“Steven,” he whispered, tears in his voice. “It’s really you?”

“Yeah,” he murmured with his crooked smile. “Things got...a bit complicated for me.”

“I’ll say,” George replied, wrapping arms around both Steve and his sobbing wife. “You came back to us!”

“I said I would,” he replied, tears choking him as over the top of the sobbing Barnes’ heads he eyed Peggy with emotions too powerful to be quantified. She had to look away, her own too close to the surface, memories of her reunion with him weeks ago fresh in her mind.

It was many long moments before any of them were able to bring themselves under control enough to speak and when they did the first thing that Winifred Barnes did was to lay into the man she’d just been crying all over. “Steven Grant Rogers, where have you been? We were told you were dead!”

“I’m so sorry.” For his part, he did look apologetic, despite the puffy eyes that betrayed just how much all of this meant for him.

Winifred hiccuped and wiped at her streaming face, pulling away enough to look him over. The shadows of loss and war had lessened somewhat in the weeks since he’d arrived back from the future, but there was no denying that the man who had gone away to Europe years ago was not the man who stood there in the arms of his childhood friend’s parents. Winifred could tell, judging from the sorrow that crossed her face. “It’s not been an easy road for you, has it?”

Steve’s crooked smile only deepened. “No, it hasn’t. I’m so sorry, it’s just…” He glanced back at Peggy, knowing well the cover story they’d all concocted. “I was on a mission. I can’t talk about it, but I was far away for a long time. Not even Agent Carter knew the details. In the end, I was able to do what I had to and I found him. I brought him home.”

It was enough for the pair of them. George, grinning just like his son, slapped a hand to Steve’s broad shoulders, pride and affection fairly bursting from him. “If anyone could, it’s you, son. Never knew a child come through so many scrapes with death as you and here you are, saving the world and Bucky. Your mother would be so proud to see this.”

“I think she’d just be happy he made it home alive,” WInifred shot back tartly, rather like the stories Peggy had heard from the boys who delighted in telling tales of Winifred Barnes and her sharp wit and eagle eye for the mischief they were always up to. “How I don’t have more gray hairs, I don’t know.”

Peggy had to admit she didn’t either, considering the woman only had a few scattered at the temples of her dark hair, but she politely refrained from saying that out loud. She suddenly felt an interloper in this family reunion, someone who was caught watching a private moment not meant for her. Unlike most of the office beyond, who oggled the scene in outright curiosity despite the emotions displayed, Peggy felt she had intrude far too much. Without fuss, she gathered her things, preparing to make an exit out of the space gracefully to give them time to reconnect. She’d made to gently slip around the knot of them and out the door when quick as a flash Steve’s hand snaked to take her hand, halting her before she could make it out.

“Peggy,” he whispered, pulling her towards the Barnes’ with pride and love in his voice. “George and Winifred are the closest thing I have to parents left anymore. They practically helped my mother to raise me.”

“I know,” she whispered back, bemused at his antics and their joy and curiosity as Winifred clearly noticed his fingers laced in hers.

“So,” he continued, unbothered by Peggy’s teasing. “They should meet you formally.”

“And they will,” she smiled, knowing Barnes’ mother had guessed already judging by the quiet, knowing look she shot her husband. “But take time to be with them. We have all the time in the world for the rest later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you hadn't noticed, I am of the opinion that Steve ended up creating a different timeline to live his life. Not that this life doesn't have it's challenges, but I like the happy moments like this.


	34. There Arose Such A Clatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Christmas surprise mysteriously ends up in the Rogers-Carter garage.

“You’re positive they won’t find any of this?”

“Of course not.” Peggy sniffed at the quiet doubt in Steve’s voice. “You question my skills in stealth and covert tactics?”

“Never! But I also know our sons’ intellect and resourcefulness and when they set their mind to something...”

“You talk as if I couldn’t outwit an eight or six-year-old.”

“Jamie’s birthday last summer?”

Peggy glowered at the road in front of them. “That is because someone didn’t lock the closet like I suggested.”

“Fair but I did point out the closet was a bad choice since Jamie would simply stack things to reach the top.”

He had and Peggy had ignored him thinking her son’s sense of self-preservation would outweigh the need to search the uppermost reaches of their bedroom closet for gifts. Considering his father, she should have known better. “I’ll hide them in the attic this time. It will be a few years before he can reach that.”

“Better a locked safe buried in the yard,” he sniffed as they pulled into the drive, the car laden down like Santa’s own sleigh. Long gone were the days they could simply pop out for an item or two without their children becoming curious. Now they were sneaking around with wide eyes and giggles to watch what their parents were up to. They’d packed the lot of them off with Bucky bright and early that morning for a day of adventure in the city before an overnight visit to see Grandma Winnie and Grandpa George to be hugged and loved and run riot with their cousins. Meanwhile, Peggy and Steve now could have an entire day to plan the shopping and strategic hiding of their children’s gifts well before they even suspected what their parents were up to.

“When is Bucky bringing them back in the morning?” Steve was already thinking strategically of the time they had left to wrap and hide what gifts they had.

“He said he would call.” Peggy clambered out of the car, staring at it filled with bags and parcels. “I suppose that would give us a bit more time to plan this out, if necessary.”

Steve slipped up behind her, an arm around her waist in an instant, pulled her against him gently but insistently. “Presents weren’t the only thing I was thinking of hiding, you know.”

There was once upon a time when such an outrageous innuendo would have embarrassed Steve Rogers too much to utter and it still delighted her when it did. “Captain Rogers! In front of all the neighbors?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on them watching, but if you insist…”

“You do think yourself clever, don’t you?” She spun in his embrace, eyeing his unrepentance.

“We have a house all to ourselves for more than five minutes with no children and no responsibilities. The world doesn’t need us to save it and I want to spend some quality time with my wife.”

“Hiding presents?”

He grinned as he inched closer, his breath warming the tip of her cold nose. “More like opening them one layer at a time...”

He might have said more, but she closed the space between them, lips opening on instinct to his, ignoring the fact that the perfectly respectful Rogers-Carter couple standing in their driveway were kissing passionately where any of their myriad of nosey neighbors could see them. Frankly, Peggy couldn’t give a toss. The idea of having a whole afternoon and evening with just her deliciously handsome husband was far too delight….

Steve broke away so quickly it left Peggy gasping and reeling, whipping towards the garage, turning on instinct so she was behind him. It took Peggy’s brain a half second longer to catch up with what was happening.

“What is it?” with careful and quiet movements she reached under the heavy wool of her skirt and eased out the pistol she always carried on her.

“In the garage, something tipped and fell over. Could just be a cat inside trying to find warmth.”

“Don’t tell the boys, they’ll demand we bring it in and keep it.” Peggy relaxed her grip a fraction but didn't let it go completely. “You going to check it out?”

“Of course,” he replied with just a hint of a smile and dry look over his shoulder. “Stay here. I’ll take a look.”

“Like hell I will, Rogers. Where do you come off bossing me around?”

“Sometimes I do.”

“Only when I ask you to, not when it comes to investigating the garage.”

“And what if it’s just a cat we have to hide from our children and you rush in with a gun blazing?”

“Then I look like an idiot and our house is free from cat invasion. Remember, I have your back now, it’s in our marriage vows. I’m certain the priest will back me on this.”

Steve knew when to pick his battles. “All right, stay behind me and cover my six in case they have a dog working clean up behind us.”

He only winced slightly as she swatted him for his cheek, but she did smirk as he grabbed the closest trash can lid as a shield. “I suppose it is better than a taxi cab door, love, but not by much.”

“Says the woman who shot at me,” he whispered, carefully stepping through the slush in the drive to the garage door. Peggy could see that it had been opened at some point, the door swung open and then closed, footprints clearly visible in the dirty, icy snow. They looked to be man sized with a tread that looked unfamiliar to her.

Steve had seen them too. “On my signal move to the other side, pull the door open so I can rush in and you follow.”

“Right,” she whispered back, waiting as he ever so carefully slipped to the side of the large windows that fronted the garage. She held her breath as she slipped beside him, waiting for him to indicate when to move. Several seconds later, he raised a finger, pointing it to the far left side. She creeped as best she could in her boots, wrapping cold fingers around the metal of the handle. She waited till Steve nodded before she drug the door back on its track, enough to let Steve rush inside first, her close behind.

The garage was dark, lit only by the outside from the now open door and the few windows scattered along the walls. She still could clearly see a figure in the corner ducking as Steve on instinct tossed his makeshift shield just inches above where the figures head would be. Peggy still had enough of a beat on them to train her weapon.

“Stop!” Her voice was cold and imperious, pinning the huddled figure behind a tool chest and a set of boxes in the corner. “I am armed and I’m currently aiming it at you and I’m not above shooting through old papers to hit you.”

“I know,” the voice called, a man’s voice. “Though Cap there nearly took my head off with that...was that a trash can lid?”

The man clearly knew who Steve was, but Peggy didn’t recognize him. Steve did, apparently, because he stopped stock still, his face turning as white as the snow outside. Wide-eyed, he stared into the darkness to where the figure still huddled, clearly taking Peggy’s threat very seriously indeed.

“Who are you?” His question snapped through the dimly lit space, something harsh and hard propelling it, surprising Peggy as she glanced at him.

A graying head of dark hair and two bright, brown eyes peeked over the top of the boxes, flickering first to Peggy with her weapon, then to Steve, wary and pleading. “I hoped you of all people would remember me. I know it’s been a minute, though maybe not...I don’t know where and when I ended up to be honest. I mean the Cap I knew wouldn’t be talking about hiding Christmas presents as sexual innuendo with anyone, not even his wi...”

Peggy barely had blinked and Steve was across the space, swatting back the boxes heedlessly and pulling the figure forward by his collar to the gray light of one of the windows. He was shorter than Steve and older, the same salt and pepper in his hair reflected in the goatee he wore. Whoever he was, Steve knew him. Wonder, disbelief, fear and happiness all mingled as he stared the man up and down before pulling the stranger to him in a bear of a hug, nearly crushing him. The stranger looked relieved unto tears that Steve finally seemed to recognize him.

“I missed you too, believe it or not,” the man said, wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders. “And it takes a lot for me to admit that.”

Peggy assumed the man was safe enough and lowered her weapon, discreetly slipping it underneath her skirt again. It was long moments before they parted, both men looking decidedly more teary eyed for it. Steve cut to the chase with his usual directness, tempered with utter amazement and clear awe. “How in the hell are you standing here in front of me?”

“You’re guess is as good as mine,” the other man replied, looking as confused as Peggy felt. “One minute I’m chilling in some afterlife - I think I was talking to Romanoff and maybe a gold-skinned dude - honestly the details are beyond insane and fuzzy right now, and then Romanoff tells me I should get a second chance to make things right. I felt like I was visiting that Indian yogi again, the one Pepper was so into, aligning my chakras and tapping my third eye or whatever. In any case I tripped balls and ended up waking up curled up in a park just down the road. Also, I’m supposed to tell you ‘good job and don’t screw it up’. Nat’s words, not mine.”

Peggy only had a brief moment to wonder how the stranger knew her daughter before he turned his liquid dark eyes on her, insanely bright, quick and clever. It shouldn’t have taken her as long as it did to click onto who this was, and she admitted in hindsight she was a bit embarrassed it did, but it was those eyes, always roaming and calculating, speaking to the frightening intelligence and wit behind them, not to mention the curious tilt of his head as he studied her that gave him away. If his looks didn’t scream out his identity, the slow smile that crept up his bearded face did.

“I don’t think I ever saw you when you were this young. I see why Rogers fell so hard for you.”

Peggy would have rolled her eyes if she didn’t sense the sincerity from him. “I see you inherited your father’s charm, that’s for certain. Can I assume I’m speaking to Anthony Stark?”

His given name made him cringe. “And you are definitely Peggy Carter. You are the one person outside of my mother who could get away with calling me Anthony.”

“Tony,” Steve finally breathed in a gasp, finding his voice.

“I wish I knew.” Tony turned on his heels to regard Steve head on, answering his unspoken question. “You know me, Steve, I’m not exactly the ‘come to Jesus’ type. Never bought into God or religion, certainly not an afterlife, so how any of this happened, couldn’t tell you. For all I know this is all some of Thor’s space magic.”

“The Infinity Stones…”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Tony openly winced at the mention of the strange, magic stones that were at the heart of Steve’s adventures in the future. “Honestly, we left the realm of what I understood long ago.”

“Why here? Why now?”

“I don’t know.” Tony dug his fingers into his hair, tugging lightly for a moment. “I just...I remember having this argument with Romanoff. She said I’d figure it out. Honestly, Cap, I am not making this up. I’m not sure you can even drop E or acid in the afterlife, not that I have since….well, okay it was closer to my forties than I’d like to admit to.”

“No, I believe you.” Steve had lived enough of a mad life that clearly the idea of a long dead friend appearing in his garage wasn’t about to rattle him. As for Peggy...well, perhaps she wasn’t far behind him.

“Steve,” she called softly, catching both men’s attention. “It’s cold and he’s likely freezing. I’ll take him inside. Can you get the packages out of the car?”

It was a moment for both men to clear their head and Steve acquiesced to her reasoning with a knowing nod, clapping a hand to Tony’s shoulder before making his way back to the car, leaving her with the poor, shivering man who still looked dazed and confused. Peggy couldn’t pretend to say she understood what was happening, only that this man was Howard’s future son and a man who had been a friend to her husband in his personal past. From what little she knew of him he was a chip off of Howard; brilliant and narcissistic, visionary and shortsighted, quick-witted and impulsive. He was complicated as all of them were, but at his heart he was a good man, one who willingly sacrificed himself and his personal happiness for the entire universe.

“Come along,” she smiled softly, holding out a hand. “I’ll make you something hot. Tea? Coffee? I think the children have cocoa.”

“I’ll take bourbon if you have it, straight, and I don’t even need the fancy stuff.”

“Bourbon I have in plenty.” She took his freezing hand, leading him out of the garage and into the house. “Come on, I’m sure you’ve been in worse fixes than this.”

“Well,” he conceded with a sigh as he followed her lead up out into the driveway. “There was that time I died trying to stop a giant purple alien from destroying all of existence…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS UTTER CRACK! This fic was born out of a random conversation and the lack of sleep and it's been lurking around for a while as a sort of funny "what if". I don't think this would lead to anything, I'm not even sure how this would work, I doubt I'll ever write out a full story, but has been written and it is out there and I can move on to other ideas...unless Tony inserts his own two cents (which clearly he did here).
> 
> So enjoy the closest thing I will ever write to a Tony resurrection fic.


	35. What Child Is This?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy tries to reassure Howard.

For all intents and purposes the giant fir sitting innocuously in the middle of the lab looked exactly like an average, brightly lit, highly decorated Christmas tree. The large, colorful lights sparkled off of glass bulbs and strings of tinsel, the star on top glittered, the ribbons and garland swagged across each branch tied the entire confection together in a way Peggy only wished her on tree at home did. It looked picture perfect, which was why she was begging the question.

“What are we doing here staring at this again?”

“I promised the boys in the R&D lab that the director would give their project a look.” Howard looked about as skeptical as she felt staring at it. “They said it’s their new idea for perimeter defense.”

Peggy shot a baleful eye to the elegant decoration set-up incongruously in the explosions lab. “Howard, it’s still a Christmas tree.”

“I know,” he muttered.

“Why a Christmas tr….”

“Peggy, I wish I could explain half the crazy ideas they come up with down there, but I don’t know. I just let them give it a go and pass judgement. Sometimes genius works that way...also insanity.”

“You don’t suppose this is honestly going to work?”

“I have no idea what this thing is going to do short of blowing everything to kingdom come, but I am here for the show.”

“Bloody hell,” Peggy muttered as over the lab intercom she could hear the engineers counting down till they set this thing off.

“In five...four...three...two...one…”

Peggy held her breath and tensed.

At first, nothing happened. The tree stood still, glittering and quiescent, shivering ever so slightly. The glass balls tinkled, brushing against the evergreen needles. A hush fell over the lab.

“Looks like a dud,” Howard began. Then the entire lab exploded into sound and light. Shards of glass flew as sparkles of embers showered on the scene, clouds of what looked like gas billowing around gouts of fire and streams of bullets, rattling towards the padded walls. Several bounced off the bulletproof glass protecting their viewing area, causing both Peggy and Howard to yelp and duck for cover. Out of somewhere, a rocket - perhaps the sparkling star - shot for the ceiling, flashing in bright, hot white over the scene of carnage below.

“This is supposed to be a security device?” Peggy shouted over the mayhem as Howard pushed her down further under a desk, trying to shield her from whatever insanity was going on in the lab.

“Maybe the boys overdid it a bit,” Howard muttered as an ominous boom and rumble sounded on the other side of the wall. They could hear yelping and cursing on the comms as two people frantically asked if they had doubled up on explosive devices on accident while a third warily asked if the knock-out gas was flammable.

“If I die due to your crackpot engineers, Howard…”

“I think they have it under control,” he countered, even as someone screamed frantically for an extinguisher. 

At least the firestorm that had engulfed the room had subsided, leaving a melted, charred mess that looked as if a nuclear bomb had gone off in the room. Peggy crawled up from under the desk to survey the damage through the haze of smoke and gas, the ruin of the lab now becoming more apparent as chaos reigned in the control room just below them.

“So, it needs a bit of fine tuning,” Howard offered, eyeing her sideways with a relieved grin.

Peggy glared at him before a tuft of her once perfect coiffed hair out of her eyes. “Fine tuning? It’s a death trap!”

“Well, it’s supposed to stop intruders from making their way in.”

“Well, since it will burn down any building it is protecting, I suppose it does it’s job as a home invasion is a moot point.” She scanned the mess below. “Honestly, it’s a wonder no one was killed.”

“I did think the flame throwers were a bit much.”

Peggy rolled her eyes, turning heal out of the lab. “You can’t be serious about putting this one into development.”

“Not with that sort of threat, no, damn thing nearly killed someone.” At least in his advancing age Howard had found a shred of responsibility. “Still, I may take it over to SI and have them toy with it a bit for military applications.”

“It’s a weapon of mass destruction is what it is. I thought you were wanting to get out of developing those sorts of things, look more into alternative energy. What is that thing you been working on?”

“The reactor?” He shrugged as he wandered beside her down SHIELD’s blinding white halls. “I mean, yeah, it will be amazing when it’s done. I’m going to hook it up to my El Segundo factory, take it off the grid. Sadly, government regulations mean I can’t roll it out past there. They’ve sold their souls to nuclear and coal and aren’t willing to listen to crazy Howard Stark and his visions of the future.”

“Is that why you throw parties, so people will listen to your crazy visions?” Peggy stopped at the bank of elevators, pushing a button to call one to their floor.

“They aren’t parties, they are expos and I’ve been doing them since the late 30’s. They are just like a World’s Fair, except they are...well, more about me.”

“I’m aware,” Peggy snorted as the doors opened, stepping between them. In truth, she had not yet been to a Stark Expo, finding them self-indulgent to a fault, though Steve had been to several, including the one where Abraham Erskine had found him and changed his life forever. She wondered if that wasn’t half the reason he still frequented them when they happened, a way of showing the old man just what he had become.

“Anyway, I’m hoping to get a full scale model of the reactor done and installed in the next couple of years. If it works, I can make one for SHIELD too.”

“How about we see if you blow your factory up before I greenlight you installing your experimental technology anywhere else.”

Howard faked looking disgruntled at her lack of faith. “You laugh, but it will change the world someday.”

“I’m sure it will, but that killer tree idea of your boys’ won’t.”

“Well, no,” Howard agreed, following her down the hall to her office, letting himself in without even bothering to ask a buy-your-leave. He never did and Peggy had given up trying thirty years before. “Say, how are the plans for the site in DC going?”

“I’m serious about not letting you put anything near one of our facilities till it’s worked for at least five years.”

“You take the fun out of everything, Carter.”

“It’s my job.” She smiled sweetly as she primly took her seat. Howard took his normal one on the couch to the side, not nearly as amused. “Come now, you can’t really expect I’d let you run amok on the new facility with your latest creations. We nearly got mowed down by a tree.”

“That wasn’t mine,” he shot back, fiddling with one of photographs of the children she kept on the low slung coffee table.

“Fair enough,” she smiled, glancing at him studying the old, black and white photo he’d seen a million times. Howard usually hardly noticed, but he smiled fondly at it before setting it down just where she’d put it at some point after she moved into this office.

“They grow up so fast,” he sighed fondly, misty in a way she only ever saw out of him when he was unveiling a new product design. “Jesus, Jamie is how old now?”

“Nineteen already.” That hurt to say, let alone thing about, her first baby nearly a man grown. “Sam will graduate next year and Nat will start driving next year...if she doesn’t kill us all behind the wheel first.”

“Don’t say such things! The idea of my baby girl driving is enough to break this old man’s heart.”

Peggy snorted at Howard’s histrionics, well used to his drama after all these years. “You spoil that girl too much.”

“I do not! Steve spoils her much worse than I do.”

“Yes, he does and you both are saps.”

Howard was unrepentant. “I look forward to being able to spoil my own soon enough so I can stop spoiling yours.”

Peggy stilled in her shuffling of files, mentally calculating the date and what she knew of the future, blinking as she looked up at Howard. He met her amazement with the closest thing she had ever seen to humility ever from him. She hadn’t been aware he could even remotely feel anything like that emotion.

“You’re serious?”

“As a heartbeat, Carter. I’m going to be a father.”

She blinked, her mind blanking briefly at that. Of course, logically, she had known that Howard had been a father in Steve’s previous timeline, but it was so abstract, the idea of Howard producing progeny, like something that happened to some other man named Howard Stark. The idea it was happening to this man, her friend, who she had known in his best and worst moments seemed so mind-bending as to not be imagined.

“Hard to believe a guy my age would be a father, but there you go.” Howard grinned, something of his cockiness returning, a state of being with him she was much more familiar with.

“You only had half to do with it, mister, so don’t think yourself so brilliant.”

“Yeah, well we weren’t sure we could even have them at all, not after the other times.”

Peggy knew those times well. She hadn’t known about the first one, but the second had been a source of quiet devastation for both of them. Maria had privately confided in Peggy that she feared that she might not be able to have a child at all. While she was still twelve years his junior, she was rather late to the motherhood game. The private hope that it might happen gave way to the grief it would not. Now, it seemed as if their hopes had been raised once again.

“I just saw her last week. She didn’t say anything!”

“We kept it private. I don’t know, neither of us wanted to get our hopes up. She’s hidden the morning sickness well, but now it’s getting to the point we have to start telling people or they’ll start figuring it out themselves. That’s not the conversation I want to have at a dinner party.”

“You don’t want to have any conversation at a dinner party that isn’t talking shop,” Peggy teased, glancing at her calendar. “How far along is she?”

“Doctors say end of April is likely when she’s due, but who knows when babies appear.”

“You say that as if it’s some great religious mystery, the birth of children.”

“It’s not?”

“You are really hopeless at this, aren’t you?”

“Hopeless? I’m terrified.” For the first time ever in her long association with him, she saw the cracks in the armor of Howard Stark, the cool facade breaking just a bit. “I mean...a kid? I am going to be responsible for a whole other human being, one who will look up to me as a father. We both know what a bad idea that is.”

“Oh, Howard!” Every teasing remark and private exasperation she had with the man faded as she saw the truly scared human being he was underneath it all. “Howard, you are a good man.”

“I”m a self-centered asshole, Peg, we all know this. I’m selfish and self-serving, I usually think of others only after I’ve thought of how it benefits my interests, and I am perpetually believing I _could_ do things and never if I _should_ do things. I’ve accepted this. Maria loves me despite this. I’m well aware of my own faults and I’m at an age where I can accept these and move on. But now I”m bringing a kid into this and I just...look, I know the answer is likely no, but do you think I could maybe bring it up to Steve?”

She should have expected that. “No, Howard.”

“I’m not asking for myself, I’m asking for Maria and our baby!”

“You know I can’t. We made a deal years ago when Steve came back, we’d only ask for those details that were in the interest of global security, knowing that even then we may not be able to head off tragedy. Hell, we knew we’d likely be creating new and different ones and we agreed the less we knew the better. We’ve lived by that this whole time. There is something to be said about knowing too much and self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“But that was before I knew I was going to have a kid!”

“It still stands, Howard. Do you really want to know so much?”

“Yes!” He was mulish in his insistence, the faults he had just mentioned now on full display. “What if my kid is born sick, like Steve? What if they grow up to hate me? What if they grow up a monster?”

“Do you think you would have a monster?”

“I could. I’m not a good person, Peggy. You may think I am, but I know I’m not. I could see myself raising a kid who is worse than I am, with all my horrible tendencies and no impulse control.”

“Howard, just...stop.” He was working himself up, filled with his own doubts. At this rate, he would be a nervous wreck before his child ever got there.

“Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

It hit her then that he wasn’t asking in challenge, Howard was asking her because he suspected she knew the truth. He was a genius, after all. Peggy squirmed under his pinpoint, dark eyes, searching for a way to get around this.

“Howard…”

“Peggy, I know how it is in a marriage, you tell your partner things, and God knows Rogers has seen enough amazing and horrible things. He’d tell you, no man could keep that all bottled in. I know he’s told you something, likely everything. I’m not asking for election results or who won the World Series. I’m asking for my kid. Just...I want to know they get here okay and it turns out all right. I won’t even tell Maria, she doesn’t know the truth about Steve. She wouldn’t want to know anyway.”

She shouldn’t, Peggy knew she shouldn’t, but in the face of Howard’s anxiety she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Mind you, I only know a bit and what I know is from a timeline that will never, ever happen now. This may all be different in the end.”

“I know, I know, I did read up on the theories of time travel and I’ve had Janet Van Dyne lecturing me on it every time I bring it up.”

 _Bless her_ , Peggy thought, no less for being part of the reason she had Steve back as for putting up with Howard when he brought up crazy topics like time travel. “Then you know anything I tell you may be different or altered now.”

“I don’t need to know they're life story, just...will we get to have this baby? We won’t lose it?”

Peggy felt her heart splinter, the true, raw grief on her friend’s face. “No, you won’t. They get here just fine.”

An invisible weight eased off Howard’s shoulders as he sagged into the cushions of the sofa, visible relief rising to the fore. “That’s...good, that’s good….I just...Maria couldn’t take another loss like that. I couldn’t...I’m glad.”

Till that moment Peggy hadn’t seen the true effect of those previous pregnancies on Howard. He hadn’t allowed her to. Perhaps he hadn’t really wanted to face them himself. “I know...a lot, Howard and I don’t know if I should tell you much more than that.”

“No,” he sighed, giving her the briefest shake of his head. “No, I’m good. I just...that was important. The rest, we can figure out as we go. I don’t even want to know the gender. I like a little bit of surprise still in my life. I’m at an age when I have so few of them left.”

“I admire your self restraint,” Peggy chuckled, eyeing him sadly. “For what it’s worth, Howard, of what I know, I will say this...they turn out amazing. Just...so amazing. You won’t think so some days I’m sure, but that’s the way it is with all children, but when they figure it out...just be patient is what I’m saying. Remember, your child is bound to be just as mad as you and twice the trouble.”

“What do you mean trouble?” He at least laughed, she suspected partly in relief.

Peggy picked up her files, glancing through them once more. “You know what I mean. That is me reminding you to not call the kettle black, Mr. Pot.”

“Brilliant advice, Director Carter.” He rose, sensing his welcome was nearing its end, glancing down at the photo on the table again with a rueful expression. “How did you and Cap do it, raise these three and still keep your sanity?”

“You assume we had any to begin with,” Peggy shot back dryly, remembering those long ago days when her own children were small. “We were terrified, to be honest, though I think Steve handled it far better than I did. He’d at least had experience around children. I had none. The first time they handed Jamie to me in the hospital he was so small and frail I thought he would break in my arms. Steve was convinced with his strength he’d crush him. But, eventually, between sleepless nights and nappy changes and more random things shoved in their mouths than you thought possible, you realize that they are strong. You realize you aren’t perfect and that’s okay. You realize that as long as they are taken care of, know that they are loved and wanted, and that they are safe in their bed every night, that you have won. It may not be much, but that’s what I have on the subject of parenting. I wasn’t there every night, but I was there most, and I always made sure to hug and kiss my kids and let them know I love them. That is the part they care about more than anything, not toys or gadgets, just knowing you love them just as they are, warts and all.”

“I couldn’t imagine not loving them.” Even now, he looked starry eyed, a far cry from the cocky, arrogant youth she had first met so long ago. “I mean, they aren’t even here and I think I’m crazy about them. I am making lists of all the things I want to give them, do with them.”

“Well, save some room for them to be themselves and not just a clone of you.” She thought of her own three; confident, good-hearted Jamie, quiet and serious Sam, and mischievous Natalie. None of them were exact clones of their parents, though they each had traits from both Steve and herself as well as their grandparents, but at their hearts they were their own people, amazing to see as they came into their own, frustrating at times too, but all more dear to her than life itself.

“That’s what Maria said, but she’s so much more calm and down to earth about this than I am. Of course, she’s the one doing all the work, so maybe that’s why.”

“Wait till spring and see how calm and collected she continues to be. I’m grateful Steve is the most patient man on the planet, though he has had to face many insane things in his life and a grumpy, pregnant me was perhaps low on his list of frightening horrors.”

“Here’s to our amazing spouses and their never-ending patience with us. We did get lucky, didn’t we, Carter?”

“I did, that’s for certain. After all, he came through time itself to get back to me.”

Even Howard went soft for that story. “Honestly, I could never top that in a million years. You are indeed the luckiest of us all.”

Peggy wanted desperately to tell him that part of the reason she got so lucky was the very child he and Maria were expecting now, that he would be brilliant and figure out the mystery of time travel, but she didn’t. Who know what Tony Stark would turn into in this life? Perhaps he wouldn’t go into engineering. Perhaps he wouldn’t follow in Howard’s footsteps. She hoped Howard would prove to be less self-involved this time and Tony’s life would veer a very different direction. Whatever happened, right now this unborn child had a world of endless possibilities before him. Who was she to predict that path and set him on it before he was even born? Best let him figure it out than to saddle him with the legacy of another lifetime.

“I think you’ll find, Howard, we are all lucky in your own way. Wait until you have to change your first nappy before you discuss luck in partners.”

“Isn’t that what nannies are for?”

Peggy just did stop herself from throwing her pen at Howard’s head.


	36. Happy Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Steve chat with their emo son.

“You guys should talk to Sam.”

Peggy blinked up at her daughter, bleary eyed from the briefs she had brought home, her mind still lost somewhere in Africa and not at Natalie’s matter-of-fact declaration to her parents as they each worked individually in the family’s study.

“About?” Steve barely looked up from his sketches but Peggy knew he was no less attentive. Natalie had the habit of wandering in to make declarative statements like this on her brothers, often in younger years it was simply just to tattle on whatever mischief they were up to and not including her in on. Now it was even odds if she came in to tell them something out of the sheer devilish delight of embarrassing her teenage brothers or honest concern for them. With the same pointedness she showed with one of her agents, Peggy got to the heart of the issue.

“Are you tattling or is something wrong?”

Natalie at least at the decency to blush before screwing her face up in annoyance at her mother’s assumptions. “I’m not tattling, something is up with him. He’s been hiding upstairs all night.”

“Leave your brother in peace, Natalie. If he doesn’t want to be bothered then you shouldn’t be pestering him.” Steve glanced up only enough to shoot her a pointed look.

“I wasn’t,” she began to protest.

“Then why did I hear you two bickering not five minutes ago,” he asked with the same sort of tone he used on his most recalcitrant clients. Natalie hardly looked sorry for it.

“I was just checking on him. He’s been like this all afternoon, since the bus. He said he doesn’t want to talk about it. Jamie says he’s been hurt and let him be, and I think it has to do with the girl he likes.”

_Girl he likes?_

Perhaps Peggy had been slow on the uptake. Admittedly, she’d been deep in the pit of post-colonial politics and the chaos around it of late and trying to figure out how to politely reach out to one of the world’s most isolated kingdoms for assistance without revealing she knew exactly how advanced they were. In the chaos of diplomatic meetings and endless daily briefings, she somehow had missed the fact that her quiet, bookish, dreamy middle son had begun to notice girls.

So of course she had to blurt her ignorance to the room like an idiot. “Sam likes a girl?”

Steve, of course, wasn’t shocked. “Oh, it’s been quite the quiet drama for several months now. Our son may be shy and quiet but he has deep and abiding longing down pat with dramatic flourish.”

“I wonder where he gets that from?” Her teasing dig hit with precision, more out of her annoyance that she had missed this and he hadn’t. Of course, he was more amused than bothered.

“I think he was going to ask her to the Christmas Formal,” Natalie immediately supplied, gossip that she was, though Peggy had no idea how she figured out that bit of news. Their youngest either had a future as a spy or or an investigator at this point, though Peggy desperately wished she would just stop trying to dog the steps of her siblings every waking moment of her day and apply herself to her studies.

“What have we told you about snooping in your brother’s affairs?” Peggy hoped to drive home the obvious point.

She should have known Natalie better. Her grin was all impudence. “Not to get caught?”

“No, it’s to not bother them. You know perfectly well they are allowed their privacy without you sticking your nose into it. If they catch you, neither your father or I will be any defense.”

“I know!” she rolled her eyes, throwing up her hands in defeat. “Just talk to him, okay. I think he could use it.”

With her final declarative statement Natalie turned and stalked out of the room with the air of a near-thirteen year old going on 40. Steve watched his darling baby girl with an expression torn between surprise and abject hilarity. Peggy rolled her eyes, setting down her files, well used to the drama of pre-teen girls.

“I wish she wouldn’t pester the boys.”

“She’s worried about them,” Steve waved it off as he returned to his sketches.

“I don’t believe they see it that way.” Pegg remembered well how Michael had taken to her doing the same thing when they were younger and how grateful her mother had been they attended different schools for much of the year, if nothing else to give her peace and quiet. “What’s this about Sam and a girl? How did I miss this?”

“He’s been trying not to advertise, especially to you.” Steve shrugged, eyeing his latest work with a careful eye, ignoring his wife’s slightly outraged expression. “It’s nothing personal, Peg.”

“Not personal? It feels personal.” She knew she was perhaps being a tad unreasonable. “I’m his mother! We’ve always been so close and I’m finding out about this from his sister?”

Admittedly, she had been rather busy with work of late. As much as they had advised against Vietnam, off the US went anyway with Peggy scrambling resources to try and mitigate the circumstances as much as possible, all the while dealing with other less obvious fall out from decolonization and a rising unhappiness with the still rather new state of Israel. This wasn’t including the situations brewing in Central America that the US kept trying to put their foot in, much against Peggy’s wishes, and the ever present standoff with Russia. Somewhere in all of this her children were growing up - and Sam liked a girl.

“I’m missing out on their entire childhood,” she sighed, mournfully staring at the stacks and piles in front of her.

Across the room, Steve finally set down his work with a carefully neutral expression. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true!” Peggy glared at him, recognizing his tone, the habit of a counselor who had worked for two decades with soldiers and agents in SHIELD. “I’m caught up here and I didn’t even notice my son mooning over someone.”

“Peggy,” he sighed, setting aside his work, coming over to her. “Love, you haven’t missed anything. Honestly, Sam worked hard to hide it from you.”

“You knew about it!”

“Mostly because I remember being his age and liking girls and hiding it from a busy mother, knowing I would die of shame had she known.”

Peggy snorted as he wrapped his still powerful arms around her, sighing as she leaned into him. “Didn’t she ever guess?”

“Only after Winifred told her and that was after she’d pried it out of Bucky. I wanted to be all stoic about it and suffer in silence.”

“How very Byronic,” she teased, discreetly wiping at her damp eyes. “So I get to blame this all on you, then?”

“Well, you always did say I had a penchant for the dramatic and I’m afraid I passed that on.” He chuckled, bending to kiss her head. “Though, considering you lept from zero to bad mother in less than sixty seconds…”

“Hush, you.” She pulled away, realizing he was right. “Perhaps we should talk to him.”

“Like that isn’t every teenage boy’s idea of hell on earth right there.”

“I’m serious,” she replied. “What if he did ask this girl to the formal and she said no?

“Do you really think he wants to hash that out with the two of us?”

“No, but it’s better to talk it out than bottle it in, correct?” Peggy turned his own therapy tables over on him, and Steve knew she did it. He sighed in quiet defeat as he realized he couldn’t argue that.

“Fine, but if he snaps both of our heads off for it, I’ll remind you of my warning.”

“Deal,” she replied, reaching up to peck a kiss against his lips. “How about you go and rouse him downstairs. I’ll make some hot chocolate.”

“Bribe him with cocoa?”

“It always worked when he was little.”

Even Steve went misty-eyed at that. “All right, but make the good stuff, I think we’ll need it.”

“Right,” she replied, smart as in the days when she’d been an SSR agent and he’d commanded his bunch of reprobates. Peggy was the first to admit she wasn’t any good in a kitchen, but she could make a decent cup of hot chocolate. She set about steaming milk and melting chocolate and was most of the way through the concoction before Steve managed to haul Sam down to the kitchen table, broody and glaring at them both as if this were an interrogation.

“Glad you went for the good stuff because it may take all of it,” Steve murmured as she poured the thick, delicious liquid into mugs, glancing back at Sam who lay slumped over the table. “I nearly had to bodily carry him down.”

“Oh dear, that bad?” She sighed, trying not to be amused by her younger son’s antics.

“A broken heart is serious business,” Steve replied, with only a trace of the old sadness. They both knew too well what the real thing felt like, torn from each other by war and time. Still, Sam didn’t understand that, and Peggy hoped he never would as she set a mug of chocolate in front of him, settling on one side of the table, Steve on the other.

“It’s come to our attention that you have been having a rough day,” Peggy finally intoned, running fingers through his thick, dark hair trying to get him to look up. Sam merely grunted, but peeked up finally, bright blue eyes over his arms as he watched his parents suspiciously.

“Who told you?”

“Who do you think,” Steve murmured.

“Nat’s such a tattle tale!”

“She’s worried about you,” Peggy cut in, not disagreeing with him but at least giving his sister the benefit of the doubt.

“She’s nosy, that’s the problem.”

“We aren’t denying that.” Steve shrugged as he sipped from his mug, channeling his best George Barnes, Peggy thought. “But you barely finished dinner and you have been hiding since, and that’s not including picking a fight with your sister. So...want to talk about it?”

Sam didn’t, but quickly realized that when faced with Captain America and the Director of SHIELD for parents he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He rolled his eyes and buried his head again before answering in a mumble that may have been English or may have been teenage moaning. Likely it was a mixture of the two.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

Sam shot up and glared at his father. ‘I said I asked Cindy Miller to the Christmas Formal.” He threw his hands up in the air before slumping in his chair, his long legs stretching under the table. “I asked her this morning before first period to see if she would go with me and she said she already had a date with Bobby Walsh from Jamie’s class.”

Steve’s minute nod across the table confirmed this was indeed the girl his intelligence network - likely Nat - had given him on the target of Sam’s affections. Peggy would have to inquire more on her later. Instead, she tried not to give into her motherly impulse to wrap her mopey son in her arms and reassure him all would be well. She had a feeling that wasn’t what he wanted at the moment and perhaps the reason he hadn’t wanted to talk about it in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” she said instead, carefully setting down her cup. “I’m guessing you weren’t aware that he was in the running?”

“I saw him around but didn’t know she liked him. She and I have English and History together and we study sometimes. I thought she might...anyway, it doesn’t matter. I guess I shouldn't be surprised she went for Bobby. He’s tall, handsome, good at sports.”

All the things Sam wasn’t yet. It hadn’t been easy for Sam in the middle. Jamie had been born the clone of post-serum Steve, a sturdy child who had all the promise of being handsome, athletic, a natural leader. He wandered through life with an easy grace and charm that reminded her very much of Steve after his return from the future, older and wiser. Sam, however, was the Steve Rogers Peggy had first met years ago. Certainly, he wasn’t as short and skinny as his father had been, but unlike his older brother he was slighter in build and far less certain of his place in this world. Sam was quick-witted, certainly, but shy, far more sensitive than either of his other outgoing siblings, much more his father’s son in that sense. Where friends, sports, and even girls had come easily to Jamie, Sam had lagged behind. Bucky had always likened it to his relationship with Steve, reassuring the pair of them Sam would catch up in his time. Even so, it ached to see poor Sam so brokenhearted, even if it was as simple as the pangs of the first real crush he had.

The question was how to navigate it without injuring Sam’s poor pride further.

“It’s not fair,” he finally moaned, glaring at his untouched mug of chocolate. “Jamie’s got everything! He asked the Homecoming queen, Sarah Drake, and she fell all over herself to say yes. All the girls like him and the one girl I think notices me decides to go out with one of his friends.”

Peggy looked to Steve. If anyone understood this predicament it was him.

“I know it doesn’t feel very fair right now, Sammy.” Steve dove into a dangerous situation with all the aplomb of Captain America. “I know that all too well. But I promise, it does get better.”

Sam’s doubtful eyes slid to his tall, handsome father, still youthful and fit even at 49-years-old...or 125-years-old, depending on the day and just how decrepit Steve wanted to claim he was. In either case, Peggy realized it was a hard sell to her gawky, coltish boy that the man who had been Captain America and had been one of his childhood heroes had ever had a phase where he was not a figure right out of legend.

“What do you know about it,” Sam dismissed with all the arrogance of youth.

Steve could only smile at his son’s impudence, perhaps remembering another boy long ago with just as much attitude. “More than you realize I do. Not so long ago I was you, worse than you.”

Sam glared at his father in clear disbelief. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s true,” Peggy offered, thinking of the photograph she kept on her desk in the office, the one of him from training camp before he ever took the serum. “When I met your father he was shorter than me and barely 100 pounds soaking wet.”

“I was more than 100 lbs,” Steve protested mildly. “Not much more, but I was more.”

“You should show him that photo from your graduation day.” Few pictures of Steve pre-serum existed. Most of what did were either classified by SHIELD or the army, but a precious few had been left in the possession of Winifred Barnes when the boys had enlisted.

Steve was less than enthusiastic with this plan. “I look like I’m twelve.”

Sam perked up at that. “Really?”

“I’ll go get it.” Peggy ignored her husband’s quiet pleas to not, gleefully making her way to the office safe where their more precious and important documents were kept. Alongside their marriage certificate and personal wills was the small album of Rogers family photos, pictures of Sarah Rogers and Steve, of Steve and Bucky as small children and finally as young men. She thumbed open the crumbling, black pages to the black-and-white photos of the boys standing side-by-side, Bucky a foot taller than his best friend, an arm slung around his neck as Steve’s mortarboard threatened to slide right off his fair head, the tassel hanging drunkenly.

“Here it is,” she called, slipping back to the kitchen triumphantly. With curiosity, Sam leaned forward as Peggy laid the album in front of him on the table. “Your father’s high school graduation.”

“Is that Uncle Bucky?” Sam studied the picture with a grin that stretched from ear-to-ear.

“Yeah, the jerk who was a foot taller than me? That’s him.” There was no heat in Steve’s words as he stared at his younger self. “I was seventeen in that photo, turned eighteen the following July. Bucky was a year older than me, so he’d graduated already. He was top of his class, valedictorian, a 4 sport letterman, prom king, voted most popular boy in his class. He was everything I wasn’t. I got good grades, don’t get me wrong, but the only thing I got voted as was the nicest and I think that’s because there were more girls than boys in my year.”

“See, girls thought you were nice,” Peggy offered, trying to find a bright thread in all of this.

“That’s not a great thing,” they both intoned at the same time. Peggy could only roll her eyes.

“What do I know, I went to an all-girls, English school. This American obsession with popularity is foreign to me.”

“Clearly,” Sam shot back flippantly, earning a glare from his mother that he only met with impudence. “So you were scrawny and unpopular too?”

“I was,” Steve replied, smiling fondly at the photo of he and Bucky. “Stayed that way for a long time.”

“You mean you went from this to Captain America all with Dr. Erskine’s serum?”

“I did. It didn’t just make me stronger, it helped make me taller, bigger and faster, too.”

“A part of that was your Uncle Howard’s work as well,” Peggy pointed out, just to give him his due.

“Not to mention your mother.” Steve’s gaze twinkled as she looked across the table to her with the same, quiet adoration he had since that first day at Camp Lehigh. “She was working on the serum with your Uncle Howard and Dr. Erskine.”

“I didn’t do much beyond training you recruits,” she demurred, flushing at Steve’s slow smile, remembering that very same one on that long ago day when he’d unpinned the flag pole as neatly as you please, having worked out the easiest way to get the flag down with his intellect and not brawn.

“Don’t let your mother fool you, she was the one who got Dr. Erskine to America and who figured out how to get Uncle Howard to behave himself long enough to get work done.”

Sam snorted. “That had to be a lot of work, knowing Uncle Howard.”

“You have no idea,” Peggy sighed, remembering all of the adventures just trying to get the serum created long before Steve Rogers was ever a name on her radar.

“So was that how you met Dad, working on the serum?”

“More or less.” She’d thought Abraham Erskine mad the day Steve Rogers had shown up in camp. “I was in charge of overseeing the recruit training and helping assess fitness for the experiment.”

“Your mother didn’t think I would make it,” Steve teased impishly.

“That’s not entirely true,” she shot back, knowing it wasn’t entirely wrong either. “I always felt your father had heart enough to make it. It was the rest of him I was worried about.”

“Well, clearly, it worked,” Sam sighed, pushing the album away. “You got to be tall and strong and good looking and life got better for you then.”

Somehow they had taken a veer in the road if that is where Sam had landed. Peggy looked to Steve who patiently tried to pull the threads back to the point he had been trying to make.

“Sam,” he murmured, catching their son’s gaze. “The serum did a lot for me physically, sure, but it didn’t make girls throw themselves at me overnight.”

“That’s not true,” Peggy muttered despite herself. Steve arched an exasperated eyebrow at her and she merely shrugged sweetly and mouthed “Lorraine?”

He flushed, clearing his throat. “Right, well I can say that when I was your age I was awkward and shy and didn’t know how to talk to girls either. The serum did absolutely nothing to help me talk to them without sounding like an idiot.”

“Oh, that’s absolutely true,” Peggy supplied cheerfully, earning another pointed look from her husband and chuckle from her son. “What?”

“You aren’t helping.”

“Was he bad,” Sam asked with eager mischief.

“Abysmal. The first conversation we had together he was rude.”

“I wasn’t that rude. And who was the one who shot at me when she got upset over a misunderstanding?”

“The shield worked, didn’t it?”

Sam’s eyes were saucers in his pale face. “You shot at Dad?”

“Something you should never do to a partner,” Peggy quickly covered up, ignoring Steve’s smirk. “I was lucky I didn’t hurt him.”

“But you eventually did come to like him, obviously.” Sam didn’t sound as if he was so sure.

“Of course I did, darling. I liked him long before he was ever Captain America.” 

She could feel Steve’s gaze on her, just as she could in those old days in the war. Just as it had back then she could feel her heart flutter with it.

“So you liked him even when he was skinny and didn’t know how to talk to women.”

“I liked him even when he told me he didn’t know how to dance.”

Sam clearly was far more impressed with this story now. “Why?”

“Because,” she smiled, reaching up to ruffle Sam's dark hair. “He was a good man with a good heart and he wanted to do what was right, not what was easy. I knew any man like that had to be a match for me.”

Sam nodded quietly. She could see him processing this all as he took his mug of chocolate finally, sipping it. “So I just have to find a girl who I like and who likes me for me, even if I’m not Jamie.”

“Especially because you’re not Jamie. She will like you because you are Sam and you are perfect for her.” 

“Right.” He wasn’t sarcastic but she could tell he was thinking on it. “So, I guess Mom was the one who liked you for you, then?”

“She was the first and only one for me, Sam, and no one else quite lived up to that.”

Peggy melted just a little at that, despite her best efforts to keep her composure. Sam noticed and immediately grimaced. “You two are so disgustingly mushy.”

“I’m not sorry for that,” Steve shot back, unapologetic. “Someday when you are older you may hear the whole story of how I got back to your mother after the war. But for now, just know I would move heaven and earth to be with her, no matter the century. When you find a girl like that, you’ll know, and it all will be worth it. Till then, have a bit of patience. Maybe Cindy didn’t want to go to the formal with you, but there are other girls you can take as friends. And maybe someday you’ll find a girl who will like you as you and she will knock your socks off and will be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“Just have patience.” Sam uttered that as if patience was the worst thing in the world. “All right, I’ll try. Maybe I can ask Suzie Peters next door. I don’t think anyone asked her yet.”

“That’s a good man,” Steve clapped Sam on one scrawny shoulder. “Just have fun with it. And don’t cream your sister for telling us, she was only trying to help.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He pulled himself up, taking his mug of chocolate with him. “Can I go now?”

“Yes,” Peggy replied, shaking her head as he bounded to the stairs, stopping briefly to wave goodnight to them before pounding up the steps. Peggy listened as some exchange happened with Natalie, brief but bloodless, before his bedroom door closed.

“Oh, the affairs of the teenage heart,” she grinned madly, reaching for Steve’s photo album to safely close it to tuck away again.

“What, you didn’t have a romance when you were his age?”

“Mmmm, slightly older.” She considered Neil Macpherson, the love of her sixteen-year-old life, a pale, pretty boy with a shock of dark hair and gray eyes that reminded her of a summer storm. She’d been smitten and had cried bitter tears when he’d broke it off. She swore she’d never love another again. “I was very silly about it all, really.”

“Were you?” Steve gathered the mugs to take to the kitchen to rinse out.

“Oh, I was convinced I would finish school and marry him and when he ended it I was determined never to fall in love again.”

“Ahh,” Steve could only smile smugly as he carefully washed each mug. “I see where Natalie gets it from.”

“You’re awful,” she swatted him but didn’t deny it. “Clearly, I changed my mind on matters.”

“When did Fred happen again?”

“I knew you’d bring that up.” Steve had never minded Fred but he did like to tease her about him.

“Poor man, broke his heart and left him pining.”

“Hardly, he married Doris Haskins-Keith during the war, with her tidy sum of money, and they live quite happily now in London as you well know.”

“Money never makes up for you.”

“I think it does for Fred.”

“Not for me.” He wiped his hands quickly before making a grab for her, spinning her into his arms as he took one hand in his, the other wrapping around her waist to guide her gently into his sway. Peggy laughed breathlessly as she looked up at him, wrapping her free hand around his neck.

“I never did get over you, Peggy Carter,” he whispered, turning to a melody only he could hear in his head.

“I know,” she murmured back, a bit starstruck despite the years she had gotten to spend with him. “Frankly, love, you had me all those years ago the moment you tried to make up for calling me a ‘dame’.”

“And you said I didn’t know how to talk to women,” he teased. “I clearly knew how to talk to you.”

“I suppose in the end that’s all that matters,” she smiled, gently pulling him down to meet her kiss.


	37. Come To Set They People Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy comes with bad news for Flynn.

“You ready for this, Carter?”

Peggy let her gaze slip sideways to Howard beside her in his long, sleek car, Mr. Jarvis at the wheel. “As ready as I have ever been. It won’t go over well.”

“No, but then again progress always means kicking over a few anthills.”

“I’m more worried about what happens when they swarm. They aren’t going to like any of this.”

“They get with the program or they walk, simple as that.”

“A great message to give them before the holidays, toe the new party line or lose your job.”

Howard shrugged, not without just a hint of guilt. “It’s not personal, it’s business.”

“Yeah, you like to say that and every time it has personal stakes for someone.”

She had Howard cornered and he knew it. “Fine, yes, it will be personal, but they’ll have to face it sooner or later. We’ve been planning this for months, Carter, you, me and Philips. We finally got everyone on board! Don’t back out on this now.”

“I have no intention to,” she snapped, her spine straightening. “I am just saying that the idea of me swanning in and taking charge will like go over about as well as a lead balloon.”

“It shouldn’t. Come on, half the guys in there know who you are and see the work you do, the other half know it and are jerks. And for those who protest, well they can take up to whatever general they wish, it isn’t going to go far.”

Peggy thought of Flynn, thus far the absolute worst of the lot she’d been dealt at the SSR. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it makes me wish Thompson were here. He at least I could reason with, even if he was insufferable, pompous, and morally vacuous.”

“How is he doing, anyway?” She knew Howard’s inquiry was more out of politeness and curiosity than it was any sense of real caring for Jack Thompson. He wasn’t any more fond of him than Peggy was.

“Back on his feet. All the more I know from Daniel. I was thinking of making him an offer once it has been formally announced.”

Howard stared at her as if she had announced that she was going to give him the Nobel Peace Prize. “To do what?”

“Thompson is slimy, waffling, and eager to prove himself. Tell me that doesn’t make a great intelligence operative?”

“One who will backstab you, sure.”

“Then you make sure you have enough on him to keep him in line...and never trust him outright.”

She couldn’t be positive, but Peggy thought she could see Jarvis shoot her a small smile of approval in the rearview mirror. Howard, however, stared at her as if she were mad, and Peggy wasn’t certain she wasn’t. Even Daniel had thought it a gamble at best. Only Philips had approved, seeing in an instant what she had been up to, playing politics and keeping a potential problem close. Peggy was laying a lot on the line believing in Jack Thompson, but at the moment she was more worried about his temporary replacement. John Flynn was hard nosed, ambitious for the New York office in the wake of Thompson’s injury, and had no love for women in the office and Peggy in particular. He was bound to take to this change like a toddler to a bath, kicking and screaming, which suited Peggy just fine, frankly. She’s had more than enough experience dealing with infantile men in the workplace.

“Do you wish for me to stay in the car, sir?” Jarvis, ever the soul of propriety, glanced to Howard who mulled it over for a moment.

“Nah, park it and come up in case things get heated.”

“Right, sir.” Jarvis ignored the signs that clearly stated not to park.

“To do what?” Peggy glanced between them in amusement. “Tut at their lack of propriety and bemoan their manners?”

“They don’t know that!” Howard was ever the optimist.

“Most of them do, actually.”

Jarvis stood at the door of the car to let Howard out onto the slushy sidewalk, unbothered by Peggy’s lack of faith in him. “As you know, I am a trained soldier and have educated myself extensively in martial arts. I seem to recall holding my own in most of your adventures, Miss Carter. Besides, how likely is it that anything will break out?”

“Knowing Flynn’s temper…” Peggy shrugged. Jarvis of course was right. If anything, Howard likely simply felt better having him there alongside. “Right, let’s do this.”

“Now we’re talking.” Howard grinned with the sort of glee that said he was thrilled to be going in and raining on the parade of someone he despised. To be honest, Peggy couldn’t fault him, the feeling was rather mutual.The walk into the telephone office did feel rather triumphant as the girls in the front all paused to stare at Peggy in her red fedora and smart suit marching past them with determined steps. Most of them knew her, most of them knew of Howard and all of them gawped at him, as gasps and whispers followed in their wake.

“Afternoon, ladies!” Howard flashed them all a winning smile as Dolores, the head receptionist who had taken over for Rose after her move to Los Angeles, stared at their little group in shock.

“Afternoon, Dolores,” Peggy smiled brilliantly. She liked the practical minded red-head from Brooklyn.

“You’ve caused a stir. Flynn’s been asking for you and not too kindly neither.” Dolores spoke with the sort of nasal accent that said she was from deep in the heart of Brooklyn, much thicker than what either Steve or Barnes ever displayed. “I’m guessing there is some hell to pay for something.”

“There is all right,” Peggy breathed, clutching her briefcase in her right hand tightly, shoulders squared. “Buzz myself, Mr. Stark and Mr. Jarvis in, please.”

She glanced at the other two men, but only a flicker for Howard, despite his charms, before pressing the buzzer on the underside of her desk. The doors opened and she entered, hearing the hum of the general work of the bullpen inside. She stepped forward, all business, opening the frosted glass door inside. Unsurprisingly, the low chatter all stopped the minute she came in, They all stared at her, Li, Ramirez, Horowitz, all of the men who she had worked beside for years. On the whole they were good men, men she’d be happy to recruit for SHIELD in some capacity. Even still, they all watched warily as she wandered in, straight to Flynn’s office, barely looking at any of them, even as she heard Howard wave hello in his jaunty fashion, diverting the eyes of those around to himself. He knew she had to have this conversation with Flynn alone.

She barely knocked on the door to the office that had belonged to Dooley, then Thompson in turn, opening it in swift move without a by-your-leave. Flynn blinked up in irritated but mild surprise, his annoyance deepening when he saw who it was who had darkened his doorway. “Carter? What in the hell are you thinking waltzing in here whenever you please…”

“I’m here to have a conversation.” She closed the door firmly, closing the blinds as she did, knowing the rest of the lot would be trying to peek glances in. “We have a lot to discuss.”

“I’ll say we do! You’ve been MIA for a week without reporting in. I know you believe yourself above rules and protocol, Carter, but there is a way things are done in this outfit, a way I know you’ve ignored for far too long.”

She blithely took a seat. “I see you’ve had my place of residence watched in order to know I was alive and well from my last mission.”

Flynn didn’t bother denying it. “You were seen out of the country with known persons of interest, known threats to the United States.”

Someone had been tattling. “I was clearing my name from false charges, or was that brought to your attention at all?”

His lip curled to his nose in mild disgust. “Captain America’s girlfriend shouldn’t have a name that needs clearing.”

Perhaps before everything else she had dealt with of late, she might have lashed out at him just for the sheer insinuation, let alone the belittling, but now she couldn’t be bothered. She simply opened her briefcase, pulling out the dossier stamped with the seal of the new Department of Defense. She neatly set it on the desk and passed it over him, leaving it to sit in between them.

“What’s this?” He glared at it as if it were a live snake.

“Orders,” she said simply, snapping shut her case to emphasize the point.

“From whom?”

“The Secretary of the Defense Department for starters, signed by President Truman, General Eisenhower, and Colonel Philips.”

Flynn’s beady eyes cut to her over the horn-rim of his dark frames. “Orders? Why do you have them?”

“Because I’ve been in Washington the last week in meetings regarding the future of the SSR.” Peggy tried to keep her tone and expression as professional as possible. Maybe there was a hint of delight at watching the disbelief rise in Flynn’s expression.

“You? Why?” He fairly barked the question across the space, still not having deigned to open the file in front of him.

“Unfortunately, Agent Flynn, you aren’t privy to that information.”

That hit home. His lip curled again in disgust as he finally picked up the folder. “Not cleared? I have the most senior ranking in this office.”

“But you still don’t have this clearance, Agent Flynn, and I don’t answer to you anymore.”

That got his attention. Glaring in stunned doubt, he flicked open the manila folder, scanning over the papers there, his face going more and more red by the moment. She waited calmly while he turned nearly purple, his fingers gripping the file so tightly it began to crumple. When he found words, they were barely in a whisper.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s a reorganization,” Peggy replied simply, unbothered with Flynn’s growing anger.

“I know what it says, but I want to know how it happened.”

“Agent Flynn, the writing has been on the wall for a while. The SSR has been on life support since the minute Johann Schmidt was defeated. When the Army was mobilized for war in Europe and the Pacific then the SSR had a role, but in the years since it’s become little more than a glorified scavenger of misplaced weapons and black market arms deals, hardly something worthy of the talents of those in this unit and certainly not a good use of taxpayers time. Sooner or later it was either going to be cut off and folded into either the FBI or the newly forming intelligence arm or shut down entirely.”

“So what, pencil pushers in Washington just get to come in here and take away our jobs?”

“Not precisely. Read on.”

He scowled but let his eyes flicker down the page again, with no less ambivalence and annoyance. It took him a long minute to set down the poor, mangled paper and shoot daggers at her once again.

“So what, it’s becoming the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

“SHIELD is what it is being called.”

“Cute,” he snapped. “What is it?”

“What Interpol is for law enforcement, SHIELD is for global intelligence and protection. The war may have ended, but we are on a new global stage. The old games of small European nations building empires and ruling the world are over. Now it’s two huge powers staring down the barrel of their large armies and weapons stockpiles with everyone else caught in the middle and a whole lot of people waiting there to take advantage of all of it. Even you must see that there is a need for an organization that is removed from any one particular nation or government, standing in the middle along with everyone else, trying to keep the peace. We’ve been through half-a-century of richer nations pulling smaller ones into their wars and destroying lives in the process. The goal of SHIELD is to try to mitigate that as much as possible.”

She had hoped reason would speak sense to Flynn. She knew a bit of him, that he had served under Hoover for years before transition to the SSR during the war to help manage the SSR’s state side investigations. As well as he had done the job, Flynn was a good old boy, in the same mold as Masters, Jones, and in his own way Thompson. The minute he flipped on his condescending grin she knew there was no point in trying to argue it further.

“You really think world peace is that simple? Get together your United Nations and your SHIELD and suddenly you can keep everyone in line?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not, I just know that no matter what you do or don’t want as of now the SSR is no longer. All the files and evidence you have on premises are now the classified property of SHIELD.”

Peggy was convinced you could ground glass between Flynn’s teeth. “This part of Philips deal then, too?”

“As Stark would say, you get with the program or you walk, as simple as that.”

Flynn snorted, eyeing the door behind which Howard was likely holding court. “Yeah, your pal, Stark, he comes out sweet in this deal, I bet.”

“Not so much at first, but seeing as he is the primary weapons contractor to the US military, they were willing to go with anything he wanted as long as they got his weapons.” Peggy smiled humorlessly at this. “You see, Agent Flynn, I may be Captain America’s girlfriend, but I’m neither an idiot nor insipid. I play the hand I was dealt. We had a need and it got taken care of.”

“Oh, I’m sure Stark was easily played by the likes of you.”

Peggy wasn’t about to take that bait. “Would you care to announce it to the boys or should I?”

“No, if they are going to hear they are losing their jobs a week before Christmas, they are hearing it from me.” He rose, grabbing his suit jacket to pull on, venom dripping in his words.

“As you wish,” she conceded with as much grace as she could muster for the man as she rose to follow him. He threw open the office door with much more force than was necessary, almost strutting out in his irritation, pacing into the room where Howard was already entertaining the troops with a tale of a Christmas party involving Marlene Dietrich, himself, and a peacock. Howard of course stopped the minute that Flynn marched himself out, dark eyes flickering to Peggy.

“Listen up,” he called, his voice hard. “Got a bit of an announcement to make. Seems that the US Army has decided to demobilize the SSR.”

Immediately there was a clamour of voices, most of them angry. One by the name of Miller, a newer recruit, barely months on the force, looked vaguely panicked at the idea. “How can they do that?”

“Came straight from the top, boys, nothing I could do.” Flynn let his gaze slide obviously to Peggy who felt every eye in the room turn to her, looking for an explanation.

“So what’s the deal?” Miller’s worry turned immediately into belligerence directed towards her.

“Simple!” She lifted her chin and her voice as she met the mutinous expressions. “Starting January 2, the Strategic Scientific Reserve is no longer. Instead, the agency will now become the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, independent of the US government and under international charter. As SSR agents, you will all be given an opportunity to apply for positions with the SHIELD.”

“Opportunities? But no guarantees?” That was Ramirez standing by Li near the edge of the group. Peggy understood his concern. It was difficult enough for men like Li and Ramirez to get hired for any job in this field, especially as agents, a fact of life she encountered herself. 

“Everyone is considered for agents with SHIELD,” she replied. “ We will need good men and women to fill our ranks.”

“Men and women?” Miller uttered this as if it was the strangest thing he’d heard in the world. “Seriously, what sort of outfit is this?”

“One that will protect the world.” She leveled a glare at the young man. “What sort of outfit do you think it is?”

He at least backed down at that. Peggy had a feeling he would be in for a rude awakening at SHIELD, if he ever made it that far.

“The application process will be opened up next week for all those who are interested. I hope to see all of you there.”

Silence met her. Some were curious, most were angry, the new ones like Miller looked ready to protest. Most of them would never make it in SHIELD. She had a feeling more than a few of them knew it. Kicking over anthills indeed, they were in for a bigger world than the narrow view of the world of the SSR. Peggy caught Howard’s eye, turning to make for the door. They would decompress and chew over her announcement for some time. She had a feeling she’d see some, Ramirez and Li for certain, likely Horowitz. The rest…

Of course, before she could get too far, Flynn cut her off, his unctious, grating superciliousness stopping her before she even got to the door. “Sign up now, boys, you get to go fight with Agent Carter. Never know what she could show you.”

The innuendo was so obvious she’d have to be blind to miss it and Peggy wasn’t about to acknowledge it. To her surprise, however, Mr. Jarvis, who had been quietly standing just at Howard’s elbow like his personal shadow did notice, and stopped, spinning on his heel to regard Flynn and his broad leer.

“I’m afraid you are incorrect in your supposition, Agent Flynn,” he called, politely, ignoring Peggy and Howard’s pointed stares at the back of his head. Why feed the beast?

Flynn only shrugged lazily in his pinstriped jacket. “And you’re going to correct me?”

“Yes,” Jarvis hardly flinched at the flint-edge in Flynn’s smile. “You see, she’s not Agent Carter, she Assistant Director Carter and you will all be working for her at SHIELD. Please do get her title right. If you like a paycheck and would like to do something worthwhile with your short-sighted, misanthropic lives, you might consider it. The pay will be quite suitable, I believe.”

With that, he tipped his hat briefly towards Peggy and Howard, before leading the way towards the elevator, with just a hint of self-satisfaction as he moved past the shocked pair of them. Without a word, Peggy moved to follow, Howard close in step.

“I told you he would be useful to bring along,” Howard whispered smugly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's now two weeks past Christmas, but I'm not even half-way through this advent calendar. The season was just too busy! So I'll plug away at it and see what fun stories I come up for it.


	38. Home For Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy has a holiday conversation with her father.

“I should have known you would be the thief!”

Peggy blinked at the tall, elderly figure wandering through the dreary back garden, eyeing her with the knowing exasperation of many years of suffering through her unrepentant and unashamed thievery. Just as she had when she was five, she merely shot him the cheekiest of smiles. “You weren’t using it and I was cold.”

“It never occurred to you to go get your own jumper to pull on to brood outside with?”

“I could have, but it was upstairs, and yours was forgotten and right there.”

“Hardly forgotten if it was kept neatly in my study.”

“Your study is anything but neat.”

Harrison Carter only arched one grizzled eyebrow at her. “It is organized in a way in which I can find all the things that I need quickly and easily. Just because you and your mother don’t understand it doesn't make it untidy.”

“When was the last time you looked at the stack of moldering briefs stacked in the armchair again?”

“A year ago and how does this justify nicking my sweater?”

“It doesn’t, but it keeps you on the wrong foot, doesn’t it?”

Her father chuckled as he settled beside her on the snow dampened bench. “You’d have made a wonderful lawyer, you know, taking up the criminal courts.”

“What and wear fusty robes and itchy wigs? No thank you! I prefer the life of adventure to that.” She nudged her father’s shoulder gently, grinning despite herself. “Just like those American pulps you always were sneaking us when we were little. You remember the ones?”

“Oh, yes, I seem to recall you and Michael reading those more often than your studies.” His mild disapproval only earned laughter out of Peggy, remembering lazy afternoons hiding in the garden paging through stories of knights and pirates.

“Yes, well, pretending I was off on some bold adventure finding lost treasure or saving the world sounded like far more fun than doing sums.”

“And yet you had a head for those after all.” He reached up to gently tap the side of her head under the waves she’d set her hair in that morning. “You were always far more bright than you ever gave yourself credit for, you know.”

“I know.”

“Will those Americans know it?”

“I hope so.”

Harrison harrumphed in a manner that said he highly doubted they would. Truth be told, he was likely more right than Peggy cared to consider, knowing the luck she’d had in her previous stint with Project: Rebirth. Yes, she’d had a position of respect and authority and was far from some overblown secretary, but that was only because Philips allowed it, and even he had his moments when he’d questioned the choice. She’d fought tooth and nail for every inch of respect she had gained as an agent in the SSR with the US Army. Now, it was different, Philips wouldn’t be there to champion her anymore. He was tasked with the SSR’s European operations and would stay behind in London. Unwilling to lose her talent, he’d negotiated a place for her in the New York office with agents who had predominantly stayed state-side during the war, ones who had never worked with her and didn’t know her war record. That unfortunately had been classified by the Army, unwilling to reveal the true extent of HYDRA and the work she had put in to try and destroy it.

“Ahhh, Margaret.” Her father sighed beside her, pulling out his ever present pipe, lighting it with practiced ease despite the chill, the smoke a familiar comfort to her. It was the scent of countless childhood evenings curled in her father’s study, nose in a book while he worked and it hit her how much she would miss it when she was gone for good.

“You aren’t going to start fretting like Mother, are you?” She nudged himagain, earning a small smile for her effort.

“Of course I am. We are you parents, we will always worry. Off in a foreign place all by yourself with no family and no friends save for Stark, who I might add horrifies your mother.”

“As he should, he’s a thoroughly disreputable man.”

“Trust you to make friends with that ilk.” He laughed at her, more amused than disapproving. “But I’m not one to talk you out of it, Margaret, mine. You have too much Carter in you to do something so wise as leading a boring, quiet life.”

“I don’t deny this, otherwise I’d have married Fred years ago and been an unhappy and unfulfilled housewife.”

“Fred wasn’t so bad, you know.” Her father shrugged, puffing briefly before sending clouds of smoke into the frosty, December air. “I mean, he was rather dull and would have bored you to tears and never would have put up with you doing anything fun, but in the end that didn’t make him a horrible person.”

“No, just a safe one.” Peggy dug the toe of her boot into the soft mud just under the simple bench where they sat. In spring her mother’s garden would be a riot of colors all brought to life under Amanda’s careful and practiced hand. Now on Christmas Eve it was simply damp and dreary, much like Peggy’s mood. “Michael was right, you know, in the long run. I’d have been deadly unhappy settling like Mother wanted. I thought Fred was the right choice. Michael told me I was meant for more than that and I was stubborn and didn’t want to listen.”

Her lost brother was a point of painful sadness to both her parents, but like so many other things in life Harrison Carter merely nodded gravely with the sort of stiff upper lip that had seen him through two wars already. “Michael did like adventure...perhaps too much. Took after his namesake I’m afraid.”

Peggy knew of her long-lost uncle, her father’s elder brother who too had died in the first world war. Tall and handsome, like her father, he’d drug the pair of them off to sign up for war thinking it would lead to adventure and stories to tell their grandchildren. The elder Michael, like so many other young men of their age, had thought it all a lark, that they would be gone and back again before Christmas. He’d died in the fall of 1916 along the Somme, a ridiculous battle that had killed an unfathomable number and sent her father home with a limp and a haunted air that she could still see every so often, even decades later. She’d seen it in the days after her brother’s death, perhaps for the first time understood something of it, that loss of a beloved sibling and comrade in arms to forces so much bigger than themselves.

“You don’t think he was wrong, do you?” She had never asked either of her parents that question. In the run up to war in 1939 so many men signed up, her brother included, and it would have seemed out of place if Michael, well-educated, fit and capable as he was, had not. For his part he hadn’t even hesitated, volunteering himself as an officer nearly as soon as he could. Of course Amanda had voiced hesitation, what mother wouldn’t, but they both seemed so proud of him for doing it.

“For signing up? No, he did the right thing.” Another puff of smoke wreathed their heads, floating away on the cold air. “I just...your brother had such fanciful ideas in his head about being a hero, saving the world. Bit like mine, as a matter of fact, always caught up in the reckless romance of it all.”

“You think Michael didn’t understand what it would mean?” He seemed to know the stakes well enough when he sat lecturing her about Fred Wells and his unwillingness to put anything on the line.

“I think he did, just perhaps not the full scope of it. It’s admirable to put your life on the line for king and country, but so many don’t understand the true cost of what that full sacrifice is. I wonder if he even did.”

Peggy couldn’t help but think of Steve in that moment, of their final conversation over the static filled radio, of the grave and frightened determination in his voice. He’d not been much different than Michael when she’d met him, determined to prove he too was willing to risk it all for his country, the difference being he backed it up. Far from being a romantic notion, it had been a hard fate he’d met head on without flinching. For a man who had faced death many times over since his youth, perhaps it wasn’t as hard a thing to look at, that full cost.

“Is all this to say I should be wise in my dealings when I move to New York?” She arched a curious eyebrow at her father who pulled from his pipe, shrugging casually.

“In so many ways, Margaret, mine you are wiser than even your brother. You know the cost. I think you always did. Now, you understand it. You have a heart full of compassion and a good head on your shoulders. Like I said, you were always so much smarter than anyone gave you credit for else you’d not have made it this far. I trust you will make the right choices, the good ones. I just don’t want you holding up your brother like a martyred saint. I loved him with every ounce of my being, but he was human, like all of us. It’s all right to do good work and live too, you know. You don’t have to be boring, but you don’t have to throw yourself recklessly at danger.”

“I know.” She sighed, her pleas to Steve ringing in her ears. “Believe me, I know.”

Unobtrusively, her father’s hand reached across to take hers, curled up in the sleeve of his worn out sweater. “For what it’s worth, I liked your young Yank a great deal.”

She sniffed, ignoring the tears threatening to freeze on her lashes. “He was a good man.”

“It’s hard being the one left behind to make sense of their absence, but that’s the way of it, I’m afraid. I’m sure you’ll muddle your way through it all, just as your mother and I have. It’s up to us to pick up, to move on, else what was any of it for.”

What indeed?

“I suppose we will need to move inside at some point before we freeze. It would never do to catch cold and miss Christmas Eve services or we will never hear the end of it from your mother.”

“And miss out on Jenkins’ dinner? Heaven forbid!” Peggy had seen the old family cook pouring through coupon books and rationed items earlier in the day. She would soak this up, this final Christmas at home with her family. The war was won but there was still so much work that was left to do and America was where her future lay for now.

“I shall miss this,” she sighed, glancing round their back garden and the cold of Hampstead. For all that London lay shattered in broken ruins, this small part of it had been hit so much less, a refuge from all the other horrors she’d seen. She’d leave this comfortable neighborhood and life for the bustle and crowdedness of New York, brash, glittering, loud, crowded...Steve’s home. She would love it, she knew it, but she would miss this.

“Everything is so different now.”

This she knew her father implicitly understood. “It won’t ever be the same, I’m afraid, love. But we will have this, your mother and I, and if you ever tire of your high-flying life we’ll be here.”

“I know,” she laughed, wrapping her arm around his. “And if your cardigan happens to end up missing…”

He chuckled deeply around his pipe. “Suppose I’ll have to ask for a new one from your mother for the holiday, then won’t I?”

“It’s getting a bit ratty anyway, don’t you think? Could use with a new one.”

“Ahhh, is that the excuse? Well, I am glad you are so thoughtful in looking out for your old papa with his mangy sweater. Now, will you come in with it and not freeze to death out here?”

“I suppose,” she laughed, standing up and holding out a hand to her father with his limp, his larger, more powerful hand in hers. “We can’t keep mother waiting, can we?”


	39. Looking A Lot Like Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Steve contemplate Howard's relationship with his son.

She should have known this entire mad plan would go awry the minute Anthony suggested automation.

“James!” Peggy growled at her eldest son, who had ducked around the corner of the house and pretended not to hear her. He was closer to forty now than fourteen, but one couldn’t tell by the mischief in his laughter as he nimbly scaled the side of their large house where already his teenage compatriot in crime was waiting with a staple gun and a manic grin. Peggy was certain by the way he kept waving it about Tony would either send it flying into someone’s window or send himself toppling off the icy roof to the bushes below.

“Are we really going to let the two of them get away with this?” She turned to glare at her husband who was overseeing the whole affair with a bland eye and a hot mug of cocoa.

“As long as they don’t set the house on fire, what harm does it do?” Steve was blissfully nonplussed about it all, much to Peggy’s consternation.

From on the roof she could hear Tony gleefully giggling. “I bet they will be able to see this from outer space!”

“His mother will kill me if he breaks his neck.” Visions danced in her head of phone calls to Maria and Howard explaining why she had to take their only son to the hospital. “Jamie, just make sure he’s secure up there!”

Her daredevil son merely waved his reassurance, already busy helping Tony wrap strings of lights around the chimney. For his part, the boy was explaining his idea for a rig for a sleigh and reindeer to look as if they were taking off of the roof. What had started out as a way to keep the youngest Stark occupied on his stay with them had turned into a mad engineering project that would surely get the neighborhood up in arms with them once it was done. When had she agreed to this?

“Look at it this way, we are a shoe in for first prize for Christmas decorations this year,” Steve shrugged, his lopsided grin underscoring just how seriously he wasn’t taking this. “Come on, Peg, let the boys have their fun.”

“Jamie’s more than old enough to know better.”

“If you trust him with the shield, you can trust him with Tony. He’ll be fine.”

Having read her son’s field reports Peggy wasn’t as certain on that as Steve was. She ran her fingers through her hair before wandering back into the warmth of their house, Steve right behind her, laughing at her paranoia. Of course he would. As far as Steve was concerned he’d let the little hellion get away with global anarchy as long as he was happy.

“You egg him on too much,” she muttered, making a beeline to the stove and her loose-leaf tea, looking for a warm drink of her own after standing in the Northern Virginia cold without a coat.

“He’s a teenage boy with more exuberance than sense. Come to think of it, he’s a lot like that as an adult as well. At least he’s with Jamie who has a head on his shoulders for all that you like to pretend he doesn’t.” He settled at the kitchen island, watching her as she filled her kettle and went about the rituals of making a warm cuppa. “So has he explained what happened yet?”

“No,” she sighed, settling on a darjeeling which she spooned carefully into an infuser. “All I know from Maria is that he and Howard had quarrelled again. Howard lost his temper, so did Tony, things were said I am sure both will regret on further reflection, and Howard of course said that if Tony didn’t like it, he could leave. So, Tony took it literally. He packed up a bag, took off in the middle of the night, no note to his mother or to Edwin and here we are.”

“Did she say what they were quarrelling about?”

“No, but given Howard’s temper of late it could have been anything. He’s been caught up in that stupid ego-measuring contest with Hank Pym, which is all his own fault I would like to point out.”

Steve cringed. “I didn’t steal Hank’s particles in this timeline, so this is all on Howard.”

“I know.” The kettle whistled behind her as she turned to grab it, turning off the flame before pouring hot water into her cup, the fragrant perfume of steeping leaves wafting up invitingly. “The truth is history is repeating itself with Howard in more ways than one and I don’t know how to stop it.”

Steve nodded in solemn solidarity. “I know, I see it too.”

“Any words of wisdom on how to approach it?”

While precious few knew the truth of just what had happened to Steve in those lost years between his supposed death and his miraculous reappearance, she and Steve had always been frank with each other about it in private. Peggy was well aware of the fraught nature of Howard’s relationship with his only son and the ramifications of what that would lead to and how it would shape the Tony Stark he had previously known. As much as she could she had privately tried to mitigate that, but she could only do so much without either being obvious or intruding unasked into the private life of one of her oldest friends.

Even as innocuous as her phrasing had been, Steve still cringed. “Peggy…”

“I’m not asking for details, just...guidance.”

“Good, because I don’t have any details. If there is one thing that Tony didn’t discuss it was Howard.”

“Which is a damn shame, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but it is still their relationship and they have to be the ones who work on it. No amount of foreknowledge changes that fact.”

“I know.” She stirred the infuser around, swishing it through the hot liquid as the tea darkened from light amber to golden. “I hate this. Howard adores that boy, you know he does.”

“I do and I know that he has always treated Tony as if he were just an extension of himself and not a human being all of his own. He thinks Tony should be the better, more virtuous version of him, forgetting Tony is just a kid with all of Howard’s frightening intellect and a vulnerable heart. He only ever seems to remember that fact when Tony does what any teenage kid would and then overreacts in the worst ways, which then of course only exacerbates the situation. Meanwhile, the message Tony is getting is that his father only ever seems to notice or care if he’s done something that upsets him and figures that while it’s negative attention, at least it’s attention. So, he acts out and does things to antagonize Howard because he can and because he’s learned that is the type of game Howard plays. Problem is that Tony’s really good at it...really, really good.”

“I wish he were less good at it.” She pulled her infuser out, setting it on a dish, wrapping her hands around the warm ceramic. “I had hoped it would all be different this time.”

“Me too.” Steve was pained in his honesty. “I long ago gave up trying to change everything in history. I helped where I could, gave advice where I could, but Howard is still Howard. Might as well as the sun not to rise as make him change his personality this late in the game. I know he loves his son. He needs to tell him that more often than he does.”

“That would be getting the great Howard Stark to admit he is wrong and that he doesn’t do...or apologize.” Peggy had long experience now in the habits of the man and saw all the worst ones in his dealings with his son, much to her sorrow. “He has such a beautiful…wonderful gift in that boy. Why can’t he see that?”

“He does,” Steve sighed, swirling the remains of his own drink idly. “It’s why he becomes so frustrated with him, he wants the best for him. Sadly, Howard didn’t precisely have a great role model in terms of fatherhood in his own and he’s muddling through it the best he can.”

“He could have looked to you. You were a wonderful father despite not having one yourself growing up.”

That made him chuckle, ruefully, perhaps considering the many, many times their children had driven them to despair and distraction. “I had good examples, though. George was the father I didn’t have growing up. Heaven knows Bucky and I drove him insane on more than a few occasions. And I saw Clint Barton with his kids, how he was so patient with them, funny, wanted to engage with them in the time he had with them. Ironically, I think one of the best I saw was Tony of all people.”

The idea that the boy who was currently engineering animated light displays on her roof would ever be a father, let alone a good one, boggled Peggy’s mind and yet she knew in a different time and place he was. “There is a certain irony in that, you know.”

“I know, but Maria loves him as he is and is wonderful with him. I think Tony took lessons from Howard and his mistakes to heart and didn’t repeat that with Morgan. He was always just so...there for her. He never expected her to be anything other than herself and rolled with the punches of life with her, even if that life included her sneaking into his garage and making off with his devices.”

Peggy could just imagine a Stark daughter running riot on an older Tony, charming and brilliant and wrapping him around her clever fingers. “He’s a good father then?”

“The best.” The sorrow that always underscored Steve’s memories from that different timeline flickered to life briefly but was squashed as the front door opened, a flurry of downy puffer coat and teenage enthusiasm bursting in. Tony was red cheeked and bright eyed as his mind ran a million miles a minute.

“So, anyway, you all really need new roofing tiles up there, but I had this idea for potentially having Santa’s sleigh go off with a shower of sparks, but not like flammable ones. We have this experimental product R&D has been working on for fireworks shows, burns at lower than human body temperatures but gives off quite the shine. They haven’t cleared it yet for use, but I get I could get my hands on some and set it up on a timer to go off on the hour just to give the neighbors a show.”

While he was spewing words as fast as his mouth could hold them he had already wandered to the pot of coffee, poured himself a healthy dose, and downed it as if it were a glass of milk. Peggy could only stare at the child and ignore Steve’s grin and barely repressed snort of delighted laughter. “Are you seriously talking about putting explosive devices on my roof?”

Tony temporized in that way that said no but really meant yes, he was absolutely doing that, a habit that was Howard through-and-through. “I mean, it’s not dangerous...that we know of. Admittedly, it’s still in the testing phase, but they want to develop it for things like sporting events and rock concerts. Jamie’s all on board for it.”

Steve really did laugh at that. “Jamie I think is on board insofar as he likely wanted you to tell Peggy that and see what her reaction was. I think he’s trying to give his mother more gray hair.”

That he was being shamelessly used in a ploy by his older “cousin” to harass Peggy hardly bothered Tony. “I could make this work, you know.”

Peggy blessedly had a very long track record with dealing with Starks. “I’m sure you could, love, but I don’t think we are zoned for that sort of thing here and I have a feeling it would get shut down anyway. But, I will let you mechanize your sleigh as long as it doesn’t damage my house. Just...be careful up there.”

“Always am!” He grinned, having already moved to rummage in the pantry, pulling out a box of cookies that Natalie would be rather sorewent missing next time she stopped by. “What are your feelings on a train on the front lawn?”

Peggy only shook her head and mildly pushed him out of the kitchen before he came up with any other brilliant ideas. “Just keep it legal.”

He snickered with cheeky insouciants, his purloined snack in hand as he went back out into the cold, wrapped up in his ideas, the argument with his father pushed back in his mind for now. Peggy watched him go fondly, remembering when Jamie, Sam and Nat had all been that age, a pack of rambunctious teenagers out to test the will of their parents. It made her a bit melancholy to think those days were behind her.

“We’ll have to talk to him at some point about this Howard business.” Steve was the voice of reason, of course, bringing her down to the situation at hand. “He’ll have to face the situation sooner or later.”

“I know,” Peggy hummed, returning to her quickly cooling tea. “But, for now at least, let him be a boy enjoying himself. It’s Christmas and we are family and he’s having fun. I don’t know, I just don’t have the heart to burst his enthusiasm.”

Steve studied her for long moments before relenting, as she knew he would. “I’m happy to have him stay for as long as he needs, just so long as he doesn’t set the neighborhood on fire or eat us out of house and home.”

“I can make no guarantees on either possibility, darling.” Even as she said that there was a thump and whoop from the roof above and Peggy hoped Jamie really did have things under control up there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have thirteen more of these prompts to go...I will make it. It's just sheer stubbornness at this point.


	40. Memories of Christmases Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Peggy and the Howling Commandos reminise.

Peggy stared hard at the tin that was shoved unceremoniously under her nose. “What is it?”

“Some of Dernier’s explosives. What do you think it is?” Barnes looked thoroughly disgruntled and it was only then that Peggy realized that the tin with it’s crinkling wax paper held what looked to be shortbread if she hazarded a guess. “Take one! I promise they aren’t going to bite.”

“Bucky’s mom sent them. I swear they are the best you’ll ever eat.” Rogers was already munching through a handful of them she saw, as was Jones beside him.

“You should know, you inhaled your own tin so fast I thought you’d bite Jonesy’s fingers off for getting too close.” Barnes rolled his eyes before waving the tin at her invitingly again. “Come on, Carter! Swear they aren’t poison!”

“I didn’t assume they were.” She perused for a moment, gingerly plucking one golden, round biscuit from the pile with a gloved finger. It was fragile and crumbly, but smelled like the familiar scent of butter and a hint of vanilla. She took a bite, the pastry melting on her tongue as her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh my God!”

“I know, right?” Bucky grinned in delight at her reaction, settling on the damp log beside her. “The best shortbread cookies that side of the Atlantic. People throughout the neighborhood wanted Ma’s shortbread.”

“I can see why!” Peggy polished off the last half of the cookie, memories of teas with her mother and the occasional treat snuck to her and Michael by Mrs. Jenkins. It spoke of happier, simpler times, when they really believed the last war was the one to end them all.

“I’m amazed they made it here without someone filching them.” Morita had wandered back from the nearby woods where he’d been checking the perimeters. “Mooky from the 101st had an entire tin of fudge that went missing.”

“So did Bettis.” Dum Dum chimed in from under his bowler where he’d ostensibly been taking a nap. “Though I’ve had some of his ma’s goodies from home and maybe it’s better they turned up missing.”

Morita snorted. “Maybe he’s just saying they were taken rather than confess he chucked them.”

“Possibility of that too.”

“Whatever it is, your mother’s are the best, Barnes.” Falsworth held one up in salute. “And that’s after weeks of shipment.”

“Wonder how she got the butter to make these,” Rogers mused, studying one briefly before munching on it in a single bite.

“I didn’t ask,” Barnes replied, shooting his best friend a glare across their small fire. “I’m guessing Dad is doing what he did in the Depression, fair exchanges.”

“Fair exchanges?” Jones had finished the stash he’d received from Steve and had settled back comfortably, his legs stretching to the fire.

Steve was the one who cut in. “Bucky’s father owns the store in the neighborhood. When times got tight, he’d exchange food for something he deemed fair - a paint job on the store, maybe help unloading, house cleaning, dance lessons for Becky, whatever. He always said that in tough times, we had to pull together to help each other out.”

“Nearly sank him financially a few times, but he and Ma always made things work out.” Barnes nibbled on a biscuit with an expression that said he was a thousand miles from where they sat in the cold of central Europe. “Remember how Ma used to make these on Saturdays for church and we’d go in and steal a bunch while they were cooling?”

“Yeah and we would have to time it just right so she wasn’t in the kitchen and we could make a run for the back door.”

Morita’s eyes gleamed across the flames. “What happened if she caught you?”

Barnes barked a fond laugh that said clearly she had caught them in the act quite a bit. “Where do you think Cap learned his wicked aim from? Got beaned by a spoon more than once.”

“Bucky’s mom was a stickball legend in the neighborhood back in the day. Used to pitch. Taught us all a thing or two, though I think Alice had the most talent for it.”

“Ehhh, I still use some of Ma’s old lessons.” Barnes ran a hand across the rifle he had set beside him.

It wasn’t the first time Peggy had heard the men lapse into fond memories of home, especially Rogers and Barnes, but it struck her as particularly poignant this night. Christmas was coming soon, another one far away from family and friends and the comforts of homemade food and shared memories. Even she was feeling it, sitting in the darkness beside the lot.

“What are your favorite memories?” She glanced to each of them huddled in the darkness. “Of Christmas?”

That gave them all pause as they looked one to the other, as if daring one of them to finally speak first. Unsurprisingly, it was Dernier who did, huddled under his wool blanket near Rogers and Jones, his rapid fire French soft and filled with nostalgia as he spoke. Though Peggy understood him, and she suspected Rogers and Barnes understood more than they let on, out of habit Jones translated for the rest who didn’t.

“He said he always spent Christmas Eve with his family. They had a large feast together before all going to mass at midnight, and then back for desserts afterwards. The desserts were the important part because they all had symbolic meaning and they were supposed to be there for three days after. The kids didn’t care, they just knew the table was covered in treats. He liked the candies best. Then they’d go to church where they had a pageant. He was never in it, he was too shy, but his sister was a goatherd one year and his mother was very proud.”

That brought a round of soft chuffs and fond smiles directed at Dernier. Barnes beside her stirred, passing the tin to the smaller man, who took a biscuit gladly. She wondered if it was at least an echo of a memory of the holidays from long ago for him.

“We never did pageants at our church, but we were altar boys.” Rogers grinned across the clearing at Barnes with a look that said there was a story of some mischief there. “Right, Buck?”

“You son-of-a-bitch,” he laughed, snagging a small stone from the ground and winging it at Rogers head. The captain was far too fast now to be caught by something like that and easily dodged, much to Barnes disgust.

“I thought it was a masterful performance!”

Now the rest of the group had their curiosity piqued.

“Didn’t know altar boys did much performing outside of trying not to yawn in the middle of mass.” Dugan clearly was fishing for the rest of the story.

Barnes scowled at Rogers, throwing up his free hand in defeat. “Might as well tell them if you went and dropped that already.”

Rogers hardly looked sorry for it. “So when we were kids Bucky went out for being an altar boy.”

“Mostly ‘cause my Ma made me,” he grumbled, earning snickers all around.

“You can see from that attitude why it is his mother said I should do it too, I think to keep us out of trouble.”

“Keep you out of trouble, you mean. You were the one getting his ass handed to him every time I turned around.”

Rogers didn’t dispute that. “So anyway our first Christmas Eve mass that was our big debut. It meant a lot to my mom to have me as an altar boy, considering all the times she thought I’d never make it to live that long, but she had to work the evening shift at the hospital. She assured me she would make it in time, but the big night came and there we were, decked out in our ridiculous gowns, no Mom in sight. It’s ten till midnight and I’m practically hanging out of the church looking for her. Finally, the deacon is getting us all in line and there’s no putting it off any longer and I knew she was going to miss the procession, which was sort of the main big deal. I had resigned myself to it, but John Barrymore over here decided he was going to put on a performance of a lifetime.”

Barnes looked disgruntled at his best friend’s flippancy. “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did. Bucky throws himself on the ground in front of the deacon and Father Lonergan wailing like he was dying. I panic because I didn’t know what was up till I see him winking at me.”

The others laughed, even Bucky, who had helped himself to another of his mother’s sweets. “Mr. Bradley immediately lectured us for eating too many cookies at the reception downstairs, which wasn’t entirely untrue, but yeah, I was faking it.”

“Anyway, so you get the deacon and priest there wondering if we should get Bucky’s mother and in the front door comes Mom wondering what in the world is going on. Of course, being a nurse she had to investigate and Buck there admittedly put on a good show.”

“She never bought it, but she never ratted me out. The Rogers family is loyal like that.”

“Anyway, so he gets himself up, dusts himself off, acts like it was a cramp, and on we go as if nothing ever happened.”

“Hey, but your mom made it and that was what mattered.” Bucky still looked pleased with himself for those long ago dramatics. “I miss your mom a lot.”

“So do I,” Rogers sighed, sadly despite the glow of long ago memory. “She loved Christmas. Always tried to make it special even if we had no money to speak of. She was so proud of me that year.”

“She’d be proud of you now, pal. Maybe be less than thrilled you put yourself in an experiment to get yourself tossed into a war.”

“Got to admit she’d hardly be surprised.”

“Fair, she wouldn’t.” Barnes shook his dark head.

Sensing the reminiscing between the two was done, Peggy glanced to Dugan across the fire. “How about you? Were you an altar boy for Christmas too?”

The very idea sent Morita into a full on guffaw, earning a punch in the shoulder from a disgruntled Dugan, nearly sending the other man sprawling into the dirt and leaves. “Hey!”

“You act as if I couldn’t be as wholesome as Barnes and Cap over there!” Dugan readjusted his bowler with a decidedly injured air.

Morita righted himself with a baleful glare. “You mean to tell me you were a squeaky clean altar boy?”

“No,” Dugan snapped, his ruddy cheeks deepening to a dark red. “Nah, too poor for that. I was already working by then, got involved with this small-time, two bit traveling circus that moved around the northeast. Wasn’t any big money, but was good work till I got old enough and big enough to work the docks, then to do the boxing on the side. Christmas wasn’t really ever a thing growing up, but I had a girl once…”

“Just the once?” Morita teased, unable to control himself.

“There have been other girls! Just she was the one I was seeing in this story. Name was Molly Sullivan, pretty as a picture.”

“Surprised she was seeing you, then,” Falsworth quietly quipped over the rim of his tin cup filled with coffee and Peggy surmised a bit extra in there.

“Honestly, me too.” Dugan smiled dreamily. “Anyway, she was determined to give me a good Christmas, so she saved up all her money and got me a pocket watch I had been eyeing. I thought it looked sophisticated, very uptown. To this day still the best present I ever got.”

“Do you have it?” Morita was even curious now.

“Not on me, but yeah, in my locker. Still works.”

“What happened to the girl,” Barnes asked.

Here, Dugan flushed, hunching his broad, beefy shoulders up to his ears. “Well, ‘fraid that’s my fault. You know how it goes, fella’ gets to thinking he’s not good enough for a girl, then does the boneheaded things in order to prove to her he’s no good. Yeah...anyway, called things off and that was that.”

They all blinked at Dugan as if he were an idiot.

“So you let this wonderful girl go because you were an idiot?” Morita snorted, spitting on the ground in disgust. 

“Hey, I own I was stupid! Don’t think I don’t know that now, but you know, maybe it’s for the best. I’m here fighting in this, and it’s easier to do alone than having someone waiting back in Boston for me to come home in one piece. Besides, she was pretty, she likely found someone else better for her.”

Peggy had the feeling that Dugan had told himself that enough times he almost believed it...almost. Look closely and you could see the regret written there if you knew what to look for.

“Well, at least you kept the watch.” Morita was clearly groping for a bright side to all this.

“Yeah, well how about you and your family on the holidays? Do you even celebrate Christmas being Japs?”

“Yeah!” It was now Morita’s turn to look affronted. “You know, it’s not just a holiday for idiotic, Irish brawlers.”

“Idiotic?”

“Can’t be mad if it’s true, Dugan.” Barnes tossed out.

“It’s not idiotic to ask if his family celebrates a Christian holiday when Japs don’t celebrate it!”

“I hate to admit you got a point,” Barnes shrugged, looking to Morita.

“My mom’s side of the family are Methodists.” It was his turn to deck Dugan in the shoulder, making him teeter just a bit. “My grandfather converted after he met some missionaries and they sponsored him studying in America. He just stayed. Eventually he brought his family over and they brought friends over, and that’s where the heart of our community got started. Dad’s side had a similar story. He met my Mom at a social while he was studying agriculture in college. They were just...normal. We always thought of it as a regular, American life.”

Underneath his words Peggy could hear the anger and disappointment that the place he had been born and raised in turning so thoroughly on him and his family, all because three generations before they had come from Japan, a country that the US was now at war with. She hadn’t thought it particularly fair to begin with but it seemed to cut all the more now knowing Jim Morita and hearing the stories of his family. They hadn’t deserved to have their lives uprooted like they were.

“So how did the Morita clan celebrate the day?” Dugan at least looked a bit ashamed for jumping to conclusions.

“Mostly the same as everyone else did; church, tree, presents. My grandmother made homemade mochi. It’s this sweet, sticky rice paste that you are supposed to eat for New Year, but we had it as treats for the day. I guess a bit like Dernier’s family tradition. We had other stuff too, Dad was a fiend for turkey so we always did the usual big meal everyone else did, but a few of the old country dishes thrown in because they were family favorites.”

“That’s what I miss the most,” Jones pipped from where he sat by Rogers, stretching legs out towards the fire. “Dinner with the family. My mama can cook! We did ham with all the fixings for our Christmas dinners. I dream of her pie. We’d get all the family together, aunts, uncles, cousins, all get together and laugh and sing carols. My sister plays piano. I have a cousin who is good with the guitar. Sort of our tradition.”

“Going to sing for us now, Jonesy,” Falsworth called good naturedly from across the fire causing the other man to duck his head abashedly.

“I’m not that good at it. My Aunty Tess has an amazing voice, though, like Ella Fitzgerald or something, but she only sings for church. Her favorite was ‘Silent Night’. I hear it and it makes me think of home.”

“My father sings,” Peggy called to him, the memory of her father standing between her and Michael on Christmas Eve singing the familiar tunes in his clear, lovely baritone. “He used to sing when he was a young man, before the war. My mother said she fell in love with him because of his voice. Now, he doesn’t so much but every Christmas he loves the old songs. His favorite was ‘In the Deep Midwinter’. I think of him whenever I hear it.”

She piqued Rogers' curiosity with that tidbit. “Do you sing?”

“Me? On no more than the usual little songs they had us do in our grammar years. I never had an ear for it.” She glanced over to Falsworth. “How about you, Monty?”

He shrugged, tipping his beret back as he scooted from the log he had perched on to the ground, inching closer to the fire. “Not so different than any of yours, honestly. We still did all the church and the dinners and the family gathering. We always had games, mostly silly ones. We had one Christmas where we all had to pretend we were someone else in the family for the entire meal and I don’t think I have laughed so much in my life hearing my father imitate my Aunt Eunice.”

“And she wasn’t offended?” Barnes blinked at the idea of it.

“No, because her spot on impression of her brother was even better.” He grinned, chuckling at the thought of it. “I don’t think I’ve laughed like that in a long time.”

That sobered them all quickly. Peggy didn’t think any of them had laughed that much in a long time. Those long ago holidays were past, replaced by war and death, far away from the families they all loved. She hoped they could soon return to them once again. Even thinking that, she knew it would never be the same for any of them.

“Think we will be home for next Christmas?” Falsworth looked towards Rogers, their leader, stoic and silent in the golden, flickering light.

“Perhaps. I hope we are. It’s been a long war. It would be nice to be home.”

From out of his pack Falsworth pulled a silvery flask that he kept there with the sort of spirits Peggy suspected he’d put into his beverage earlier. He tipped it into his cup before passing it to Dugan, letting it make it’s way from man to man before ending with Bucky, who held the flask itself rather than tipping a pour. Falsworthy held up his cup in the firelight, the others doing the same, following in his toast.

“Here’s to Christmases past, and present, and yet-to-come. Let’s hope next year will be a far better one and we all get to go home to those we loved the best.”

“Here, here,” Peggy called as they each made their own agreement, tipping back their scant mouthful of alcohol, scotch by the smoky taste of it, the burn of it warming Peggy’s throat as it blazed a trail to her stomach. She wrapped her blanket tightly around her, watching the flames as she thought of her mother and father back in England and missed them terribly.

It was Dernier who punctuated the entire evening with a sad, wistful sigh. “Merry Christmas, _mes amies_.” His English slurred but was intelligible, his smile encompassing them all. “I am glad to be with you.”

They all could echo that sentiment, but it was Dugan who gave it voice. “You too, Frenchie.”

“All right, Howlies. Time for some shut eye.” Barnes was firm as he eyed them all, especially Rogers. “I’ll take watch first. Falsworth and Morita, you cover the other two.”

“I can get middle if Jim can get last,” Falsworth glanced over at Morita who shrugged and nodded good-naturedly.

“Right, the rest of you sleep.” Barnes leaned in to nudge Peggy’s knee. “Including you, Carter, we’ll need you connecting with base in the morning.”

“I see why Rogers accuses you of fussing.” She at least obligingly undid her sleep roll and made herself comfortable by the flames. One-by-one the others did the same, settling in despite the chill, trying their best to find what rest they could. Peggy felt herself drifting off to sleep with the sweet memories of holidays past in her mind, for the first time in a long time thinking of Michael and missing him.


	41. Still of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Steve walk and talk on their first Christmas Eve back.

“I have never been fond of candy canes.”

Peggy found this new revelation about Steve Rogers to be nearly as shocking as his arrival on her doorstep with his mad story about the future...well, perhaps not quite as shocking as that, but still enough to give her pause.

“How is that even possible?” They walked arm-in-arm down the chilled streets, gazing at the various homes. Here and there were strings of bright holiday lights glowing in the darkness, a testament to the end of the war that they had all been through that people even felt comfortable enough to do that again.

“Never liked them.” Steve shrugged, hands deep in the pockets of his heavy, wool coat. “I think it was the association with doctors’ offices and medicine, both of which I had plenty enough of as a kid.”

“Fair,” she replied. “I dislike mince pies, myself.”

“Don’t they revoke your British citizenship for that?”

“Surprisingly, no, I am not fond of either sultanas or currants and the whole mulled mixture never sat with me.”

“Well, then, it’s a good thing you are in America now. None of that mince pie here.” He nudged her fondly as she laughed, the sound carrying on the clear, cold air.

“What sweets did you like?”

“Me? Oh, chocolate was popular when we could get it. Winifred’s shortbread cookies.”

“I remember those well.” Peggy still had fond memories of the carefully hoarded tin that Barnes had brought with him on their tour, still delectable despite weeks in transit.

“My Mom was not a baker. She nearly set the house on fire making biscuits once. I am afraid I inherited the same level of talent in the kitchen.”

“I’m no better. We had Mrs. Jenkins growing up, the best of cooks, but alas, she did not impart those skills to me and I had no interest in learning.”

“I suppose this means we live on the grace of Winifred Barnes and her baking for the foreseeable future.”

“I am sure she will be delighted by that.” Peggy suspected that they would be inundated by whatever she had made for them to bring home tomorrow when they went into the city to have Christmas dinner with Steve’s adopted family. It would be a production, she was sure, the first with him since the war. Of course, there would be one person missing - Barnes was still in a medically induced coma at Camp Lehigh and would be for some weeks yet - but the joy of his recovery and eventual wakefulness far outweighed the uncertainty of what would lay on the other side for now. Their boys were home and would be able to celebrate many, many more Christmases to come.

Steve seemed more than thrilled with the prospect. “It will be nice to have a big Christmas! I haven’t had one in a...long, long time.”

The aching sadness and longing bled through his words, a reminder of just how long it had been since he had been home, let alone near the closest thing to a family he had in this world. “What was Christmas in the future like, then?”

“For me or in general?”

“Both!” Peggy would admit to an insatiable curiosity about the future and what it held, though perhaps one not quite as big as Howard Stark’s. It all seemed rather unreal until he pulled out his futuristic phone and showed her the pictures and video to prove it. Unlike Howard, however, Steve very rarely ever held back details from her.

“Christmas in the future is...I don’t know...big!” He laughed, cocking his head in thought. “Seriously, they start the season the first of November there, even earlier in some places. It’s as if Thanksgiving barely exists. There are Christmas songs for weeks!”

“Good ones, I hope.”

“They are very fond of the same ones we listen to, yes.” Steve had waxed poetic when he heard Bing Crosby’s familiar croon out of the radio one evening earlier in the week. “Honestly, I feel Christmas music is the one thing that hasn’t evolved too much in the future, though there are a few newer ones I grew to like. They love to decorate. There are glitter and twinkle lights everywhere. People are fond of doing competitions for lighting their houses, it gets to be a whole big thing, synchronized with music and animation to make light shows, neighbors driving in to see whole blocks set up that way .”

“Sounds overwhelming!”

“It could be, but there were good things too.” He smiled in thoughtful memory. “My first Christmas there, I had just moved to DC and I didn’t know anyone or anything yet, was kind of lost as to what to do about any of that. Somehow I got shanghaied into this Christmas event these SHIELD staffers were having, just a group of young professionals who couldn’t get home for the holidays. They were being nice, I know...and perhaps a bit...err...forward.”

“Forward?” Now Peggy’s interest was piqued. “Like...propositioning?”

“Not...exactly.” His already cold-numbed cheeks turned even more red as he ducked his head, finding his shoes suddenly very fascinating. “Apparently there were several interested parties who hoped I would get invited to their dinner because I was Captain America and because...well, I look like me.”

The years and experience had made Steve a far more confident, capable man then he had been when first she knew him, particularly in dealing with women, but there were some things that would never change. She couldn’t help but laugh at him even as he grinned, knowing how ridiculous it all was. At the best of times, outside of command, Steve could be shy. Peggy could only imagine what a room full of strangers in a time not his own had to be like.

“Well, clearly you survived the attention of future women and lived to tell the tale.”

“It wasn’t all bad. I think I spent a lot of time watching a basketball game with the guys on TV...at least until SHIELD called me in on an emergency. Apparently Tony had a run in with a terrorist who decided to kidnap the president.”

“Of course he did, he is Howard’s son.” Peggy had not been shocked to hear that Howard would have a son as mad and brilliant as Tony clearly was...would be...in the future. “How did that happen?”

“I didn’t get the full story. All Tony said was that it was youthful indiscretions getting the better of him. Bruce was the one who told me that it had something to do with some corporate enemy and a dangerous experimental procedure, all of which sounded insane and about on the level for Tony.”

“So says the man who managed to sleep forward and then jump back in time.”

“Fair, I guess.” Steve conceded cheerfully enough. “After that Christmas, though...they were all pretty quiet and mundane. I did spend a few holidays with Sam’s family after we connected, at least until we went on the run. After that...well, nothing was the same really after that.”

Peggy knew of bits and pieces of it, the horrible truth of what did happen to Barnes in the other timeline, of the death of Howard and his future wife, and the rift that would form between Steve and Tony that would lead to the all out destruction of the Avengers as they scattered to the winds. Still, the weight of the experience of being without a home or a country, of being truly lost without any touch stones while he still tried to do what he did best - saving the world - had affected him far more deeply than he liked to let on. Peggy could see it there in the fine lines near his eyes, in the melancholy that hadn’t been there before.

She squeezed his arm briefly, leaning her head against his shoulder. “You weren’t alone at least.”

“No,” he huffed, his breath a cold, silvery cloud in the darkness. “Even at my lowest points I still had friends who cared for me.”

“Because you’re a good man, Steve.”

“I do try.” He didn’t sound convinced and honestly Peggy didn’t press. There was so much he had experienced, so much grief, death and loss, more than most of the rest of them. She could understand how in those moments it felt that he wasn’t the ideal everyone else seemed to hold him up to. All she could do was remind him that he was mortal, like the rest of them, and that she loved him even when he wasn’t the amazing, perfect, noble character that the media liked to make him out to be.

“What was the best present you got in the future?” She tried to change the subject to something lighter, to shift his focus away from what hadn’t succeeded.

He squinted up at the darkened sky as he thought about it. “Tony once gave me the entire back catalog of what he deemed Hollywood classics to watch and catch up on, so I probably have seen every movie that will come out in the future.”

“I don’t see how this is a good present as this sets me decidedly at a disadvantage.”

“I promise I won’t spoil you on anything.”

“Spoil?”

“It’s what the kids call it in the future, means you spoil the ending. They are very against it in the future and it’s prevalent because everyone is on social media at all times. One random message and someone’s ruined it for you.”

The idea of that much interconnected information at all times gave Peggy a headache. “All right, so no spoilers as you say, but you still will have to take me to the cinema to watch, even if you know the ending.”

“I won’t know every movie that came out, so I think we can arrange it.” He grinned teasingly at her.

“Fine! What else?”

“Sam and Natasha went in together to get a collection of old Brooklyn photographs for me, places I would have seen. Some of them I remembered, some I didn’t, but it made it feel more like home, seeing what was there and what had changed.”

Knowing how much the city had changed even in the time since she had first been there with Project: Rebirth she could only imagine what it looked like in a different century. “It sounds as if they knew you well.”

“They did, especially Sam and Nat, Wanda too. In fairness she could read minds.”

It was a testament to how much she had seen over the years - or even really, just heard of Steve's experiences - that Peggy hardly even flinched at that idea of mind reading. “They seem like good people.”

“They were...will be I suppose.” Even he laughed at the confusion of timelines and the blurring of past and future. “Maybe someday you’ll get to meet them. Not the same way I knew them but essentially still them, I guess.”

“Who is to say that our paths will cross at all? If what you said is true then by being here you are changing a timeline. Everything would be different, their parents lives would be different, they would be different. Perhaps there won’t be a Tony, or a Sam, or a Natasha.”

“I know, but I would like to think that the universe would still have them exist, that there would be a chance for them to have different lives, maybe better ones.”

“Second chances,” Peggy murmured, considering the possibility. “Perhaps better chances.”

“I don’t know better chances. You had an amazing life before in the other lifetime. You had respect, a family who cared for you, a long life. You at least were able to move on.”

“As opposed to you?” Even now, weeks on from his arrival, he seemed guilty for what he had done it, a lingering regret of not returning to his friends waiting on the other side with the expectation of seeing him again. 

“Clearly if I came back in time to you instead of moving forward in the future I have issues.”

“I think you are assuming that by coming back here you weren’t moving forward. I disagree with that assessment.”

The vehemence of her words surprised her no less than him. Steve actually stopped, pulling them to a halt in front of a random house, white in the dim light, it’s lights dark save for the softly glowing tree in the front window. “I’ve changed a lot of things by coming back here, you know. The world as it happened before won’t now and I have no way of knowing if that’s for the better or worse.”

“The way you tell it, we managed to muck up the other world but good. Perhaps the only thing we can do now is to start all over, hope we do it better this time.”

Something played across his expression, her words stirring emotions he wouldn’t let her see. Still it seemed to relieve him in the moment, a weight falling quietly off his shoulders. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this too is moving forward, of building something new...better, not having to pick up the pieces of what was old and broken.”

“Well we can’t guarantee it won’t have it’s own equal share of trials and catastrophe’s, love, but we can try.” She reached up on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his briefly, smiling up at him, their breath co-mingling in the frost between them. “And I think the future you just left behind will take care of itself. Bucky is there and Sam sounds sensible. If nothing else your Avengers left a legacy. It’s up to others to pick it up and I have a feeling that what you all inspired will grow into something special.”

“I hope so.” His brow crinkled in that way he had, the single line furrowed deeply over his nose. Gently, she reached a finger to smooth it away, making his eyes cross as he watched her, but earning a ghost of a smile for her efforts.

“Stop taking the worries of the world - of two worlds - onto your shoulders by yourself, Steven Rogers.”

“Look who's talking.”

“Maybe we need to remind each other from time-to-time.” She brushed her finger down the length of his nose, resting it against his bottom lip. “I don’t know how I felt in your previous life, but I do know that the me that is in this one will never regret you coming back for her.”

Her words seemed to be what he needed to hear in the moment. Softly he kissed the tip of her finger, reaching up to grab her wrist and slide her cold fingers into his far warmer ones. “Don’t you know how to wear gloves?”

“Makes it too difficult to fire my weapon with those things on.” She allowed him to move on, smiling up cheekily at him as he tugged her along beside him.

“My mother would be horrified.”

“Funny, mine gave up a long time ago.”

Her smartness only earned a fond shake of the head as he pulled her closer alongside him. “Maybe it’s good I did come back. Someone needs to keep an eye on you, Carter.”

“Who was the one who flew a plane into an iceberg again?”

He only grinned, pulling up their entwined hands to brush his lips against her knuckles. “At least let me have your back?”

“Always, Captain Rogers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is fluffy and short but there you have it. I am still grinding through these Advent shorts and some inspire me more than others. This was a less inspired one, but it pulled at some ideas I had in my head I may develop into other stories later on.


	42. A Long Time Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve and Peggy watch a movie.

They curled together in their bed, pillows tucked just so, the firm roundness of her belly propped up as she watched the projection on the far wall with rapt attention. It flickered in the darkness like magic, for all she knew it was based on technology she could find here and now. Still it felt somewhat magical, like the first time she went to the cinema with her parents and Michael, seeing moving pictures and knowing there was such a thing. By comparison...this was so much better.

“I think he is going to come back,” she whispered in the darkness, feeling Steve’s fingers trail lazily on the curve of her stomach. He peeked down at her speculatively from where he nestled behind her, watching this future film called _Star Wars_.

“You think so?” He had the knowing inflection of one who had seen this film several times, and Peggy resisted the urge to smack him.

“Well, obviously, it’s the set up, right? Make friends with the good-hearted, handsome scoundrel, show him a better way of living, have him find his honor again. That’s how it always works in these stories.”

“Hmmm,” Steve pretended to consider thoughtfully. “So, in our story, who is the scoundrel then?”

“I’d say Howard, but he has been in the tabloids again for some other ridiculousness.”

“I saw,” Steve chuffed mildly. “Jane Russell this time?”

“I live in hope of his eventual reformation.” Peggy shook her head, thinking quietly. “Perhaps Tony is more the Han Solo of our story.”

“Tony would find that funny.” Steve chuckled quietly, always with that hint of sadness. “This was his favorite movie of his childhood, you know. He found out I hadn’t seen it yet and made me watch all of them in a weekend.”

“Is this why you have it on your smartphone?” A name that was both utterly ridiculous and completely accurate in Peggy’s opinion.

“Well, yes, Tony loaded these things up with stuff I’m still finding.” He eyed the device where it sat on the table along the wall, projecting the image upwards. “He and Sam despaired of the gaps in my pop cultural history knowledge.”

“Well, I feel honored that I get to watch a film that won’t be out for another twenty-seven years.” She paused to watch quietly as strange airplane-like spaceships screamed through the void of space, the effect so startling it brought her to silence, watching the make-believe dog fight with wide eyes. It was several moments into it before she breathed softly. “It’s so real!”

“It’s amazing what they can do in films in the future. Wait till I show you _Jurassic Park_! It has dinosaurs!”

Peggy only laughed, reaching for his hand on her abdomen, resting just above where their growing child liked to kick. “What a future our little one will get to behold!”

“It is something, I won’t lie.” Steve’s voice was nostalgic...perhaps a bit longing. “He or she is going to live in a time when the whole world is so connected to each other you could scarcely believe it. Man will have walked on the moon and then consider it rather passe. They will just be figuring out there are whole other civilizations in the universe, other people who they can learn from and get to know. It will be an amazing world.”

Peggy turned ever so slightly to glance at him, lit in only the pale blue glow of the projection from his smartphone. She was unsurprised by the wistfulness she saw there. “You miss it there?”

“Well, yeah.” He smiled somewhat sheepishly, kissing her temple gently. “Not enough to regret a bit of this.”

“Obviously not if you left it all to come here to me.” She turned more fully to face him, running a hand through his hair gently. “But you miss then, that time. You miss the life you had there.”

“I do,” he murmured, reaching over to tap the screen of the phone, pausing the film and the projection. “I miss the Avengers. I wonder if they are okay, if they have moved on. I wonder if Bucky is all right there without me, if he ever learns to trust anyone again, if Sam and Wanda are there for him. I wonder about Thor, if he was able to finally get help, to find his purpose after he felt he destroyed all of it, if he’s any better now and how he’s doing. I wonder if Clint is able to put what he did behind him, rebuild his life with his family, mourn...grieve Natasha.”

He sighed with a shudder and a sniff, his eyes glazing as he became very interested in running a finger in a random sketch across the top of her pregnant belly. “I wonder if Pepper and Morgan are doing okay. Pepper is strong, I know, she’s run Stark Industries for years, put up with Tony for longer, but to be widowed and raising a kid alone...I know a thing or two about what that’s like for Morgan. Knowing your father died a hero and feeling proud and every day wishing he was there to see you grow up. Wanting your mother to be free to be there for you but knowing she’s doing a big important job. At least they have money enough, but still it’s not the life I would have wanted for Tony’s daughter.”

He trailed off absently, three-quarters of a century away with friends who lived in a different timeline, who had fought by his side, built friendships with him, become his family. Peggy had known since first he spoke of them that they had become important to him in his time away, that he had loved and cared for each one of them and that walking away from them had not been easy for him to do. It still stunned her that he did it at all, leaving them behind to come back in time to find her.

With an aching heart, she reached to still his restless hand, pulling it up to kiss gently, before placing it back just over their now blessedly quiescent child. “You have a heart that is impossibly large and ridiculously loyal, Steve Rogers. I would expect that you would miss your friends - your family - no less. And our child is going to be the luckiest damn baby to have you as a father.”

That got a smile out of him, faint and somewhat soppy. “I think the jury is still out on that one. Wait till I have to face a diaper.”

“I think we will both manage.” She chuckled reaching up to wipe discreetly at a stray, suspicious, silvery trail down the side of his nose. “I wish you could see them, tell them you are okay. I wish you could be assured they were all right. I know in the future - our new future together - it won’t be the same. They won’t be the same.”

“No, they won’t.” He sighed at that, gently kissing a stray knuckle before she dropped her hand. “Perhaps one day I’ll get to see them again...see how it all turned out.”

“Maybe,” she smiled, not sure how he’d accomplish that feet, but certain if there was a way, he’d find it. He had gotten back to her, hadn’t he?

“And I have you here with me now, the one thing I always wanted.” He scooted closer to her, wrapping an arm just above her belly to pull her in as she laughed. “Bucky is healthy here, more himself than he could ever be in the future, which was all that he ever wanted. He’s getting his second chance. And we will have Margaret Junior in another six weeks…”

She snorted with no small amount of asperity. “I wish you would stop referring to our child as Margaret Junior.” 

Steve was hardly sorry for it. “I petitioned for Jarvis and you didn’t like that one.”

“Edwin would hardly find it as funny as you, nor would he get the humor you find in it.” Peggy was well aware of Tony Stark’s future AI, and while she thought it was sweet of him to name it after his butler, Steve’s delight in the subject didn’t precisely make sense out of context.

“One of these days we will have to choose a name for our child, preferably before they start school.”

“Margaret Junior isn’t it.”

“Han?”

Peggy snorted. “Be serious!”

“I am! You seem to like him, the dashing space pirate. He has a bit of Errol Flynn about him.”

“And I know stories about Errol Flynn that will turn your hair white.” Peggy sniffed, having heard one too many of Howard’s more licentious tales. “What do you want to name the baby?”

“You seriously have no names?” Steve looked as if he didn’t believe that.

“No getting out of this, you are the one harping on me about the lack of names.”

“I know, just...you're the mother. Don’t mother’s get to pick?”

Peggy merely stared at him with bemused exasperation. “One day we must teach you how to talk to women, darling.”

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

She did and it was part of the reason she had avoided this conversation every time it came up. “I don’t know. I’ve never been fanciful like that, thinking of my future children’s names. Frankly, I wasn’t so sure I’d have any.”

Steve took her confession in stride, considering. “I can’t say I really considered it myself, but...I don’t know, I suppose if I ever thought about it, I always hoped if I had a son I could name him after the one person who meant the most to me out of anyone, save you.”

Peggy could only grin as she considered it, sounding the name out into the darkness. “James Rogers...it has a ring to it. What do you think, baby?”

She directed the question at her round tummy, but there was no answering kick, which for once was a blessing. Steve chuckled as she watched for some sign expectantly. “It took us a long time to get this little one to rest, maybe we shouldn’t wake them.”

“Fair,” she replied with a long sigh. “James Rogers, not Bucky. I still think that’s a ridiculous nickname. Besides, he will sound like a comic book hero.”

“Not Jimmy, either, else he will be confused with every other boy in his class.”

“No...Jemmy?”

Steve wrinkled his nose. “No...maybe Jamie.”

“Jamie...I like it.” She thought of the name attached to a little boy, strong and sturdy, with his father’s dark blonde hair and strong features, but with the Carter habit of throwing himself into mischief whenever it came his way. He would be loved and cherished by his namesake, who would spoil him rotten and teach him how to throw a baseball and quietly cover for all her son's youthful indiscretions, of which Peggy was sure there would be many. “Jamie it is! But he will need a middle name.”

“I picked the first name, I’ve done my part,” Steve protested, mildly. “Michael after your brother?”

“No, my nephew is Harrison Michael, so those are out.”

“I’m shocked Howard hasn’t approached you with a bribe to name our child after him.”

“He has and I denied him,” she snorted, chuckling. “Though, in fairness he has a point. If you think about it, if it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be together. And it if it weren’t for his family, then you wouldn’t….”

She paused, glancing at the still figures of spaceships lighting the space off to the side of their shared bed. It was a good idea...one she liked...and one she knew Steve would love. She sounded it out in her head silently, liking it more and more as she did.

“Peggy?” Steve shook her gently.

“Anthony,” she whispered.

Steve heard her and froze, eyes wide.

“Anthony, in honor of the man who was your friend and who gave up so much to save all of us. Without him you wouldn’t have been able to come back to me, and this baby would never have happened.”

Steve reverently murmured the name out loud. “James Anthony Rogers...it’s a good name.”

“I like it,” she replied, thinking of the men it honored and the place they each had in her husband’s life. “Howard won’t know it, of course, but we will know it’s a tribute to his son and to him in its own way.”

“If he asks, I can simply tell him it was someone I knew and leave it at that.” He gently rubbed her belly. “Well, James Anthony Rogers, you have a name finally.”

“Well, if he’s a boy, we have a name. We are in hot water if it’s a girl.”

“We got this far, we can think of girls names later. I’m still petitioning for Margaret Junior.”

“You won’t give up, will you?”

“Have you ever known me to do such a sensible thing.”

“No,” she laughed, sighing. “Right, now that this is settled, can we go back to our film? Perhaps back it up to the start of the battle, I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Of course,” he obliged, reaching for the device to return it to an earlier point. “I will not deny you the pleasure of seeing if your roguish space pirate does redeem himself after all.”

“I’m not even sorry about it! He’s quite handsome.”

“The actor is currently still a child.”

“Shhh, Rogers, don’t bother me with your time idiosyncrasies! I tell you he will come in to save the day!”

“We will see.” He was being maddeningly evasive and she resisted the urge to swat him for it.

“I’m predicting that Han saves the day, Luke succeeds and gets his girl, and it will be a happy ending all around, just like our ending.”

Steve snorted outright at her bold suggestion, but didn’t look at her as he pressed the glass, restarting the film. “I have a feeling we will need to watch the second movie tomorrow. I don’t know how well your prediction is going to play out as we move along.”

“Why?”

“Just keep watching!” He set the phone down on the nightstand again, settling down beside her. Peggy ignored his smirk as she returned to the action at hand, smoothing her nightgown over her belly. Jamie...or so she hoped...was blissfully quiet and ignorant of his parents’ silliness or the impossibility of his own existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given everything, I needed a bit of light and fluffy and thus this chapter came to be. It was born out of a not dissimilar conversation my own parents had about baby names and watching Star Wars - I was born in August after it came out. Additionally, the image of the two of them curled up in bed watching a film at a time when that sort of thing wasn't accessible for most people just delighted me, so there you go.


	43. The Visitor from MIT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Howard discovers something about the visitor he had that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is utter crack. This fits in no concept of any timeline I had (as I espouse the separate timelines theory of Steve's return). Instead, this is pure indulgence born from watching Avengers: Endgame twice this week and loving the Howard and Tony scene and having this bit of fluff wedge itself in my head. Since "Sketching a Myth" is more more self-indulgent fanfic, here it goes. I share my cracky ideas here with you. Enjoy.

It was closer to ten o’clock than nine when she finally managed to stumble home, exhausted and head aching. Today had been one of those days, the sort that made her wonder why it was she put herself through running SHIELD, because only a mad woman would do something like that. Between the Braddock cock-up, the break into SHIELD, and having to put down Hank Pym’s righteous anger at the loss of his particles, Peggy was ready to chuck the whole lot of them into the sea. Perhaps she could just retire now, walk away to talk Steve into a happy retirement somewhere with warm beaches and blue waters, far away from the mess that was her everyday life.

“And what would we do sunbathing all day?” He poured her a glass of wine in the kitchen as she brought up the idea.

“Get golden tans is what?” She chewed a bite of lukewarm pasta, only half tasting it. “Live in nothing but our swim clothes.”

“Not that I mind the idea of staring at you half clothed all day, but don’t you think it would get boring?”

Peggy snorted at her husband’s cheek, arching a pointed, and perhaps purposely seductive eyebrow. “I could make it worth your while, soldier. I still have that two piece from that trip we took to Hawaii…”

He didn’t quite take the bait, but he was intrigued, clearly. “Promises, Carter, but what will we do with Sam and Nat?”

“They’re old enough, they can forage and survive on their own. Jamie’s got a car, he can come home from college and rescue them if they need it. He wants to join SHIELD so badly, we can call it a training exercise.”

“You are a cruel mother.” He leaned in to kiss her temple.

“What? For saying the younger two could survive or making Jamie responsible for them?”

“Yes,” he chuckled, putting the wine away. “So, what today had you wanting to flee your job and abandon your children?”

“Everything,” she muttered, stirring her pasta grumpily. “Braddock’s mission nearly went pear-shaped if I hadn’t caught on to a random weather report. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but while that was happening we had an infiltration of the base. How they made it past the Army on top side, I have no idea, but at least two of them did, wandering right onto the base. One of them was seen in the high-containment labs downstairs, Howard’s playground, while we think the other lured Hank Pym out from his lab and stole some of his ridiculous particles. He’s been on the warpath ever since, convinced it was Howard. It couldn’t have been him as he was the one who figured out about the intruder downstairs. I don’t know, it was all a mess, and I had to spend four hours with Colonel McGrath about the security of the facility, and frankly this is all the more reason I’m glad we are pushing through the DC project and building the new facility down there…”

She paused at the look on her husband’s face. From time-to-time Steve got that far away look, the one that said he was a million miles and decades away from where they were. She had those moments herself, most everyone she knew who had ever seen war had. She usually gave him the space to work it out, but it was the curious guilt and the flush of embarrassment that accompanied that intrigued her.

“Steve,” she called, catching his attention. “Darling, you all right?”

“Yeah, just...today is April 7, right?”

“Yes,” she glanced at the calendar on the refrigerator wondering what about it was particularly special. “It’s a Tuesday. Is that important in any way?”

Something wistful passed his expression. “Not anymore, just…”

The doorbell rang, catching them both by surprise. Before either of them could move for it, though, Sam’s voice rang from the stairs. “I got it!”

Peggy frowned at the clock. It was after ten at night. “Who would be stopping by?”

Steve didn’t seem to know either, silently shaking his head as Sam called from the hallway. “It’s Uncle Howard!”

Worry and mild frustration spiked as Peggy hustled after Steve to find Howard in his rumpled suit looking about how Peggy felt when she had walked in the door that night. He smiled apologetically as he clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Thanks, kid. Sorry for barging in this time of night, just...hoped I could bend Steve’s ear for a few minutes.”

“Is everything all right?” Peggy’s thoughts immediately going to the heavily pregnant Maria. 

Howard seemed to sense this as he was quick to reassure her. “Yeah, no, Marie’s fine...well, as fine as you can be, I guess, this close to popping, but I just...yeah. Edwin and Ana are there with her. I just wanted to ask Steve some things I didn’t want to broadcast, if you know what I mean, and I know it’s late, but my brain wasn’t letting it go.”

“It’s all right.” Steve of course would agree to anything Howard asked of him, even if it were going to the moon. Considering Howard’s impending fatherhood, however, she knew he was even more on edge than normal. Unlike nearly every one of his peers, Howard had forgone children to an age when he would normally be looking forward to grandchildren. Now after a lifetime on his own, he was facing the prospect of his own son with the sort of worry that Peggy rarely ever saw out of her friend.

“All right,” Peggy agreed, taking Howard’s arm and shooing Sam back upstairs to his room for the night. “Come on, let’s get you something to drink . There’s some leftover pasta if you want.”

“No, Jarvis fixed me up, and coffee if you don’t mind.” He had been laying off the alcohol for now, at least till after the baby arrived. “It was a weird day.”

“Tell me about it!” She settled at the kitchen island where she had been eating her dinner. “I don’t know how we are going to convince Pym that you weren’t out to steal his invention, because he’s convinced of the fact.”

“I wasn’t even near his lab,” Howard scoffed, rolling his eyes. Despite the fact they were both ridiculously brilliant engineers and scientists, or perhaps it was because of it, Pym and Howard had never gotten along. This was the latest salvo in a long running cold war between them. “I was downstairs at the time.”

“I heard,” she muttered, stabbing at her pasta as Steve puttered by the stove making the fancy coffee he’d learned in the future, pulling out the coffee pot he had purchased in Italy and the special espresso grounds from the cabinet.

“Yeah...it was a strange day.” Howard settled on one of the stools distractedly. “He seemed nice enough, you know, the man I met. Charming...very charming. A bit starstruck at first, like a lot of people are around me, but I figured he was some MIT egghead who grew up on stories of me. I didn’t think anything of it in the moment.”

“What did he take?”

“Nothing, really. I mean, perhaps he did? It was strange, the Tesseract was clearly tampered with.”

At the stove, Steve uncharacteristically nearly dropped the grinder he used for the coffee beans. It landed on the countertop with a clatter, but seemed all right otherwise. “Sorry,” he yelped, busying himself with not causing a catastrophe. 

Howard glanced at him but continued. “The safe had been cut right through by something, I don’t know what because anything requiring that much butane would have been obvious, but I checked. The Tesseract was safe and sound, as if nothing had happened to it.”

“Good,” Peggy sighed in relief, not needing anything else to go wrong with her day. “That is too dangerous to get in the wrong hands. Honestly, I don’t know why we keep it.”

“No exactly something we can just toss in the garbage, is it?” Howard’s gaze slid to Steve who was busying himself with his coffee making implements. “Strange thing about the guy I met, though, we got to talking about fatherhood. He said he had a daughter, asked me about the baby, we exchanged advice. I don’t know, it was...nice.”

“Nice?” Peggy couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Only Howard would make friends with a potential thief and spy - not exactly the first time he had done it. “For all you know, he could have been sent by anyone to break in and take one of our most valuable items and sell it for profit, but you are making friends with him.”

“Yeah, I thought that was weird too. It was just so...surreal, talking to him, like I knew him forever even though I’d just met him.”

“Thieves and spies are often charming.”

“That’s just it, I don’t think he was a thief or a spy.” This time he did pointedly glance to Steve. “What I can’t figure out was how he got the safe open and what he did with the Tesseract.”

Confused, Peggy frowned as Steve turned slowly, guilt now written all over his face. He had always been a horrible liar, and now he looked like Jamie did when he tried to explain how he put a dent in the back fender of the family sedan. “I have an explanation, if you want to hear it.”

“Steve?” Peggy frowned from her husband to Howard. The latter only shook his head in mild awe.

“I knew it! I don’t know how..I asked Jarvis, but he didn’t know him and I can’t say I ever saw him in my life. Still, somehow I knew it.”

Steve’s smile was wan as he wiped his hands on his trousers. “I saw the two of you standing there and I thought we were done for, but he had always been good at charming the hell out of people, you included. Besides, I thought he could use the moment. He always wanted to have it with you.”

Peggy was only picking up pieces of the conversation, but her aching head was making her terribly dull witted at the moment. “Would someone care to explain what is going on here and why Steve was somehow involved in it?”

Howard shook his head, glancing to her husband ruefully. “Pym’s particles?”

“Gone.” He flushed in that bashful way he had, unable to meet Peggy’s startled gaze. “They were used for a greater purpose.”

“Steve,” she growled in frustration, watching the silent conversation happening between himself and Howard. “Could you enlighten the class on just what you know about the break in of my SHIELD facility and the fact that someone made off with top-secret technology.”

“It wasn’t just someone,” Steve finally replied, with a look that begged her for something. “I was the one who stole Hank Pym’s particles. I posed as a soldier, snuck into the facility, called him away from the lab and took the particles.”

Whatever Peggy had expected, it hadn’t been that. Panic rose within her as she tried frantically to put together how that was even possible. “Why….how?”

No sooner than she said it than it clicked her exactly when he did it, as well as the why and how.

“Pym particles powered the quantum tunnel,” Steve replied, more for Howard’s benefit, she suspected, than her own. “That's how we managed the time travel. We’d gone to New York in 2012 to find what we needed, but one of the pieces got away from us. We didn’t have enough particles to find it and to get back home until we hit on the idea that they would both be at Camp Lehigh at this time. So we snuck in to grab them and go back to 2023.”

Peggy had of course heard the story, but it hadn’t occurred to her the full extent of it. In truth, it never even occurred to her in the moment that it could have possibly been him. She stared at him stupidly, trying to wrap her brain around it. “You took Pym’s particles?”

Steve’s sheepish look stood at odds with the situation. “I did tell you we had to do some time traveling hijinks to get all the stones.”

He had, decades ago, when he first returned. She had forgotten until that moment. “Oh dear, I don’t know what to tell Hank.”

“Not the truth,” Howard replied firmly, looking scandalized by it. “Even if he believed it, could you imagine what he would do if he knew about the possibility?”

“No,” Steve barked, harsh in the stillness. They both turned to look at him. “No, just...time shouldn’t be messed with. It has a tendency of messing back if you do.”

Howard’s gaze was calculating for a long moment, studying Steve. “You’re right. Let’s just let sleeping dogs lie on that one, I’m willing to take the heat with Pym.”

That didn’t set well with Peggy. “Howard…”

“It’s not like Pym and I were best friends` to begin with,” Howard waved it off, clearly determined. “Besides, I’m willing to take a bit of heat from my pal. Call it part of my contribution to saving the universe.”

Whether Howard liked to admit it or not, every so often he could be less than self-serving. “I still think you are an idiot for doing it.”

“Not the first time you’ve accused me of that, Carter. Anyway, could you imagine explaining the alternative?”

“No,” she replied, glancing at Steve who had forgotten the coffee and taken to leaning against the counter instead. “But the Tesseract…”

“It was one of the stones,” he explained, amending himself quickly. “Is one of the stones. It needed to be back where we took it from else reality could unravel. You found it there today because I returned it before going back to the 1940s.”

Peggy’s head throbbed with the effort of thinking about that. “So you were the one in the basement?”

“No, the first time that was someone else,” Howard replied, eyeing Steve. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Steve murmured, sighing from deep inside himself, that old wound floating to the surface. “Yeah, it was.”

Howard only nodded heavily with that expression he often got when pieces of a mystery finally clicked together in ways he hadn’t expected. “I doubt Howard was his real name, I would never agree to that. What is it?”

“Tony.”

Then the mystery of it all made sense to her. She stared wildly at Steve, years of secrecy about the identity of Howard’s son stirring panic inside of her but he held up his hand, a silent expression assuring her it was all right. Clearly, Howard had pieced that much together on his own. For all his other foibles, Howard wasn’t an idiot.

Their silent interplay was missed by Howard, who was sounding out his son’s name with a faint softness. “Tony, huh? Anthony is Maria’s father’s name. She’s been petitioning for Almanzo, she liked those prairie books when she was young and thought it was romantic, but I like Anthony Stark better.” 

With shaking hands, he scrubbed at his face, a brief, wet laugh barking out of him. “So that was my son in what...fifty-three years?”

“Yeah,” Steve confirmed, heavily. “That’s Tony. The reason you didn’t find cutting equipment was that he was wearing his armored suit. It was one of the features in it.”

“He didn’t have it on when I saw him.”

“Nanotechnology, microscopic robots he had encased in a badge attached on his chest. I think he had a mini-arc reactor in there to run the whole thing.”

“Jesus Christ, he perfects the arc reactor too?” Howard marveled, something painful and wonderful lighting within him. “You mean my son helps to figure out time travel, makes a suit of armor he can power through miniscule technology, and perfects one of my biggest inventions?”

“Among his many accomplishments, yes. He saved the world and the universe a few times over as well.”

“Of course he did,” Howard threw up his hands, half in delight, half in amazement. “I just..I’m over here wondering if I’m going to be a horrible father, if I’m going to screw up his life forever, if I will even know how to do it and there he is talking to me like he’s seeing a ghost. No wonder, I guess I would be for him, I have to be dead by the time he’s 53. We were comparing notes on fatherhood and raising kids…”

He stopped, dead, another thought hitting him. “He said he had a little girl...a little...I’ll have a granddaughter!”

If possible, Howard looked even more delighted by that. He turned to Peggy, a soppy grin on his face, not terribly unlike the grin he had when he told her that Maria was even pregnant. “You hear that, I will have a granddaughter, a little girl. My son will have a daughter! She sounds like she’s a handful.”

“She is,” Steve cut in, softly. “She was fond of Tony’s work room. I think she’ll follow after the two of you.”

“Of course she will! She’s a Stark,” Howard affirmed, despite the fact the girl wouldn’t exist for another nearly fifty year. “What is her name?”

“Morgan, after one of her mother’s uncles.”

“Morgan,” Howard shook his head from side-to-side as he considered it. “Not a name I’d have thought of for a little girl, but not horrible I think. Morgan Stark has a ring to it. A granddaughter...me, an asshole who never thought he’d have a wife and family and I get a genius son and a precocious granddaughter.”

“Remember that genius son bit when he’s a teenager and doing everything he can to try your patience and get in trouble,” Steve warned him dolefully. “Tony’s...well, a force to be reckoned with. He’ll make you crazy and frustrate you beyond belief, but underneath it all is a man who wants to do good and to make you proud.”

Howard absorbed Steve’s words with a grave and misty expression. “If the man I met today is anything to measure by, I got to admit, I already couldn’t be more proud. Seriously, I have a kid like that?”

To see Howard of all people so awed by this revelation was amazing indeed.

“I’ll remind you of all of his in about sixteen years when he’s driving you mad and you are despairing that he will ever live up to his potential,” Peggy grinned at him, knowing Howard was thinking of the man Tony who would appear in decades, not the child he would have to raise.

“Sixteen, hell, long before that. He’s going to be intellectually kicking my ass long before then. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“You will be,” Steve assured him. “As well as any of us can be. I don’t know if any one of us can say we had this parenthood thing figured out when they got here. You just learn as you go.”

“That’s what Tony said. God...he was my age now, you know, and he seemed so much more put together than I am, so very sure of all this.”

“Tony lives a life,” Steve shrugged, clearly not willing to give much more away than that. “He was one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever known, certainly one of the most heroic.”

“Yeah...Anthony…Anthony Stark. I like it. I mean, I know I gave you all hell for giving Jamie the name rather than Howard, but…”

It hit him then, that piece of their eldest son’s name. “James Anthony! You named him after my son!”

“That was Peggy’s idea,” Steve passed the buck on to her and Peggy was unapologetic.

“You wanted James, as I recall.”

“You picked Anthony.”

“I did.” She shrugged, still recalling that long ago conversation. “He was the reason you could come back home to me and I felt it was important.”

Howard was far too delighted by this. “I can forgive you not ever picking Howard then after that. Does Jamie know?”

“Not yet,” Peggy cut in, all seriousness with her friend. “We haven’t told the children anything, not yet. Perhaps when they are older, certainly Jamie if he keeps on about SHIELD and taking up Steve’s mantle business. I don’t like it, but if he’s dead set, we’ll tell him for certain about Steve’s past.”

“That is going to be strange for him, knowing you are named for someone who is twenty years younger than you.”

“It’s not going to be as strange as everything else he’s going to encounter, I’d warrant, but yes, I think I’ll advise him to perhaps not to tell young Tony that bit of their shared history.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” Howard agreed, readily. “Frankly, I am happy keeping Tony out of all of it, the time travel, the world saving, all of it.” His expression turned fierce as he turned to Steve. “I want to stop him from ever having to put on a suit of armor to save the world. He’s my kid...I don’t want him carrying that responsibility.”

“Who knows what the future holds, Howard.” Steve knew that for all they had fought to change the future, they couldn’t predict it, not with any sense of accuracy. “I don’t know if he will or won’t. This timeline, this future, that’s his own and he will make of it what he will. But I can promise you I won’t do anything to push him anywhere. If I have my way, Tony’s going nowhere near a cave in Afghanistan.”

“Why Afghanistan?”

Steve had perhaps said too much. Peggy gut in, her tone a warning. “Nothing in the future is set, Howard, and how much of it do you really want to know?”

Her words cooled his worry and curiosity somewhat. “Like always, Peggy, you’re right. Let sleeping dogs lie for now. Tony’s future, whatever it will be now, is his own. I got to let it play out and see and just do the best I can to make sure it’s a good one.”

“That’s all any of us can do,” Peggy assured him, patting his arm as he glanced towards his watch.

“Jesus, it’s after eleven, Maria is going to kill me. I said I’d be back before midnight.” Small chance of that happening now. “I’m sorry for keeping you up.”

“Anytime, Howard, you know that,” Peggy assured him as she rose to walk him to the front door, Steve right behind.

“I have to figure out how to convince Maria of Anthony for the baby.” Howard shuffled to the door, opening it. “Did he go to MIT?”

Steve blinked, caught by Howard’s question. “Uhhh, yeah, he did, graduated at seventeen I think.”

This made Howard grin. “Chip off the old block, I guess. I just wondered where he got the MIT from. What about the Potts?”

“Potts?” Steve was slightly mystified.”

“Yeah, he said his name was ‘Howard Potts’.”

“Oh, that!” Steve laughed heartily, the sound ringing into the night outside. “God, we were both bad at secret identities. Potts was his wife’s last name, probably the first one he could think of in the moment.”

“It’s better than ‘Private Stevens’,” Peggy shot back, tartly, as Steve flushed, scrubbing the back of his neck, the nervous habit he never had lost. “I spent the entire evening trying to track down this so-called ‘Private Stevens’ and no one by that name and rank existed.”

“Yeah, well...it worked.”

“You are impossible,” she muttered, reaching to hug Howard tightly. “Go home, sleep, and be happy you know that your son will grow up to be alright. Consider it a blessing.”

“Thank you.” He pulled away, shaking Steve’s hand before heading to his large and rather expensive car parked in front. Peggy stood on the porch, watching him go into the night as Steve came beside her, one arm wrapped around her shoulder.

“You think that Tony will be alright,” she asked quietly as Howard’s tail lights fades in the distance.

“Who knows? This future is different. I certainly hope so. I’d like to think he gets to have a chance at a better relationship with Howard.”

“Maybe you and I can help make sure it’s a bit better this time around.” She snuggled against his still broad shoulder, wrapping an arm around his narrow waist. “So, Private Stevens, you two gave me a bit of a headache today.”

Steve only laughed, a rumble she could feel under her cheek, a sound she didn’t think she could ever get tired off. “Yeah, well I’m only partially sorry for that. I’d forgotten the day, else I would have warned you.”

“Yeah, well, soldier, how are you going to make it up to me?” She glanced through her lashes up at him, picking up her flirtation from earlier in the evening.

“Hmmmm, I always could try and cure that headache of yours.” He reached fingers up to trail across her scalp, earning a shiver for his efforts.

“Listen to you, carrying on so, a man of your advanced age.”

“You started it,” he protested mildly, grinning down at her. “Besides, speaking of age, a woman with nearly grown, adult children looking as striking as you.”

“Oh, now I know you are flattering.”

“Nope,” he pulled her around to face him, face half in shadow in the dim light of their front porch. “You didn’t know it, but on the other side of your office window today, when you were carrying on about Braddock, there was a soldier in the middle of the fight of his life taking the biggest gamble he ever had made, standing there watching you, utterly transfixed with how beautiful you are. And all he could think to himself in that moment, standing in the dark, watching you, was that wherever you are, no matter what time it is, you were always, always his true north. I think I knew right then, in that moment, that if we won the battle and defeated Thanos the only place I wanted to be afterwards was whatever time you were in.”

Whatever was left of her headache fled in that moment. How could she stay angry with him after that? Still, she couldn’t help a hint of mischief. “Do you mean to tell me you were inches away from me and you couldn’t bother banging on a glass window and let me know you were there?”

It was a good thing her beloved, dear husband was well used to her impudence. “You see, we were having a moment…”

“We were, and I felt I had to give you some payba…”

He shut down her teasing handily enough, pulling her against him for a kiss that left her breathless. Just as it did so many years ago, it still left her weak-kneed, holding on to him for dear life, forgetting the irritations of the day, the mild panic at the base, and the chaos he and Tony had caused.

As he let her go, he smirked down at her, looking far too pleased with himself. “Better?”

“It’s a start,” she whispered breathlessly. “Though you may have to explain to the neighbors why we are necking on the front porch at midnight.”

“It is by far not the most insane thing I’ve done today of all days,” he chuckled, kissing her again. “Come along, Ms. Carter, I need to get you to bed.”

“Do you now?”

“How else am I to make up for the day I’ve given you?”

“With talk like that, I might just keep you around,” she laughed, trailing him back into the quiet comfort of their house.


End file.
